In December 2019 The Metropolitan Opera, known as ‘The Met’, celebrated its first year of operation with the new renovation and is already ramping up to host more than 200 shows in 2020.
Beginning in 2017, a massive renovation project was initiated to bring The Met back to its former glory, with the purposeful and proper goal of keeping the original interior and exterior design style of the building intact.
The Met’s main PA is now the Clair Brothers stereo C12 line array with sixteen cabinets per side; eight iS218 double 18-inch subs flown per side; and eight CS218 double 18-inch subs beneath the stage. For sound reinforcement, Clair Brothers FF2 front fills, as well as, kiTCurve12 front fills are aimed underneath the balcony to the left and right sides of the stage near the front.
Remaking the Met into a modern music venue for amplified music required dealing with balconies and box elements where the architecture has a tendency to obscure the clarity of sound in areas. Several time-delayed speakers were installed to fill out the frequency range under the balconies, on walls behind columns and inside the box seat areas.
In the back of the room on the first level, where the intermediate Loge level balcony is situated, a series of kiTCurve12 under balcony speakers were installed in addition to sixteen P8s distributed around the balconies and box seats as fill speakers. On the Mezzanine level, there are three separate arrays of three kiTCurve12s as over-balcony delays. All speakers were very carefully time-aligned and equalized to provide seamless coverage and extra clarity throughout the entire room.
Upon installation and just prior to the Met’s grand opening, everyone involved, including Jim Devenney, senior systems designer at Clair Solutions, the project’s installation company, walked the room from the front row to the last. The results are beyond excellent. “In fact,” Josh Sadd, chief engineer at Clair Brothers said, “one of the guys from Live Nation told me that the best sound in the room was in the last seat. So, I checked it out and was impressed with how intimate, natural and clear the sound was. It pulls you in like you’re right there. You don’t feel far away at all!”
