Home of Zarzuela – a form of Spanish traditional musical comedy – central Madrid’s Teatro de la Zarzuela was restored to its historic beauty in 1913 after a fire destroyed the original 1856 building. Now owned by the Ministry of Culture and a designated Asset of General Interest with Monument status since 1994, the Teatro is Spain’s first and only Spanish lyric theatre. The most famous Zarzuela performances have premiered here and the best works of its repertoire are still sung and heard here to this day to audiences in excess of 1200.

Theatre, television and event rental company, CityLight Iluminación, has supplied 32 Robert Juliat Dalis 860 Cyclorama lights to the opulent venue, procured from Robert Juliat’s exclusive distributor for Spain, EARPRO & EES.

Teatro de la Zarzuela’s technical team carried out some in depth research when choosing their latest cyclorama lighting, making extensive enquiries on their requirements within its own team of experts and with visiting lighting designers before making their choice.  “Our investments are always a collegiate decision based on the views of all they affect, and on our need to improve our equipment while providing each lighting designer with a wider range of resources,” says Antonio López, Technical Director at Teatro de la Zarzuela.

Dalis 860 answered all the team’s wishes: a 300W 1m long batten with 48 asymmetrical reflectors housing an array of 8 coloured LED emitters, including warm and cool white. The original and award-winning Dalis 860 is a well-engineered cyclorama light created to deliver powerful, smooth coverage and a huge variety of pastel and saturated colours.

Shortly after receiving their new Dalis fixtures, the team installed them in readiness for a series of concerts: “We rigged 9 Dalis 860s on a lighting bar set 1.8m behind the cyclorama cloth and another 9 units on the ground at the same distance,” says López. “From here we projected onto a pearl grey PVC cyclorama, successfully covering the 12m wide x 8.5m high surface with ease and obtaining a beautifully smooth result with fabulous colours. We found every aspect of the Dalis to be both useful and outstanding!”

The Dalis 860 fixtures have since been put to good use on a number of productions including the Gal·La Placídia Opera, the Lied Recital, a Symphonic Concert of Spanish Music, and of course the tribute to the soprano, Victoria de los Ángeles, where the coverage and colour palettes, from saturated to subtle, have proved exceptional.

“The performance of the Dalis 860s has far exceeded the expectations of the lighting designers in charge of these productions,” says López. “They all report very good output and good colour quality, and are very impressed in how accurately the Dalis can be tuned to match LEE Filters or Rosco colours to a much higher standard compared to any other fixture on the market.

Teatro de la Zarzuela’s technicians are also very happy: “Despite Dalis being a recent purchase, the team considers them to be of a much more robust construction than other lights with a similar purpose,” reports López. “We are very happy with them and with the service we have received from CityLight which has been, as always, very professional and efficient.”

More information on the Robert Juliat Dalis 860 and the full range in that family of fixtures, along with and Robert Juliat’s extensive range of followspots and lighting fixtures can be found at www.robertjuliat.com 

For more information on CityLight Iluminación can be found at www.citylight-iluminacion.com 

EES can be contacted at www.earpro.es

Teatro de la Zarzuela: www.teatrodelazarzuela.mcu.es