MOSCOW, Russia – The Moscow A.P. Chekhov Art Theater uses an ETC lighting system, with two Congo control consoles at the helm. Head Lighting Designer Damir Ismagilov chose the consoles and has them operating hundreds of lights, including conventional fixtures and automated fixtures.
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ETC Congo Lights Up Moscow Art Theater
Middleton, WI – The Moscow Art Theater named for A.P. Chekhov has been a staple of Russian theater in some form since its first performance in 1898. With a repertoire of both foreign classics and Russian favorites, the Moscow Art Theater also stays true to its namesake, staging the highest caliber productions of Chekhov’s works. To ensure the lighting for the shows shines as brightly as the stars on stage, the Moscow Art Theater employs an ETC lighting system.
In 2003, Head Lighting Designer Damir Ismagilov replaced the theater’s old system with ETC products, with two ETC Congo control consoles at its forefront. The board programmers didn’t have any formal training on Congo, but were able to sit down and program them right away because of the board’s logical layout and intuitive design.
Ismagilov and his team say they are impressed by the attributes that the Congo system offers that they didn’t have on their old console, from the graphic interfaces and universal submasters, to synchronized backup, and the ease at which the boards control moving lights. Initially, they didn’t have the opportunity to try out some of the more advanced features, because the venue didn’t use many automated fixtures, but as the theater stages more musicals every year, they’re incorporating a great number of moving devices into their rig.
Says Artur Ratke, the director of the Moscow Art Theater’s artistic stage lighting department: “Now we’re mastering work with Content Effects and Dynamic Effects. So, it turns out we use our Congos 100 percent!”
The Theater’s Congo consoles control hundreds of lights, including ETC Source Four conventional fixtures, Source Four Zooms, and 34 Source Four Revolution automated fixtures. The lighting system also includes a dozen racks of ETC Sensor+ dimmers, as well as an ETC Unison architectural lighting control system, which controls the theater’s houselights, worklights and rehearsal lights on stage.
Since 2004, the lighting for every show on the main stage has been controlled by the Congo consoles, including recent products such as The Humpbacked Horse, Three-Cent Opera, Pickwick Club, These Ghosts and The Cherry Orchard.
