O Guarani: an acoustically suitable project for a new Opera House

Abstract

The article presents the conception of an acoustic project for a new opera house, called “O Guarani”, to be implemented at the federal capital, Brasília, with about 1000 seats. The main focus of the article is the acoustic conditioning of the opera house. Initially, the basic assumptions from the acoustical point of view that an opera house demands are discussed. The main constraints, such as reverberation time, must take into account both music and speech which is a typical characteristic for a room of this kind. Once the architectural concept and the materials to be used have been defined, a computational simulation is carried out, aiming to determine acoustic quality parameters, such as T20, C80 and D50, for receivers distributed in the audience. These parameters proved to be satisfactory for the intended use of the proposed theater. An auralization is then conducted. This is prepared for an aria of the opera “Don Giovanni”, by Mozart, from an anechoic recording of a soprano, interpreting D. Elvira, and ten accompanying musical instruments. The result of the auralization - available at a link - seems to show the good sound quality obtained by the proposed acoustic project.

Keywords:
Architectural project; Opera house acoustics; Acoustical quality parameters; Auralization in rooms