Opera
Music design: Sergio Soldi; pyrotechnic design: Alesio Soldi; FireOne firing with 60 32-cue modules
The opening display by Pirotecnia Soldi represented their 11th participation in Montreal. Cursed by bad luck in the past, including interruptions by thunderstorms, the Italian team was blessed with a perfect summer’s evening with low humidity, light winds in a good direction and temperatures a touch on the cool side around 21C. The audience was noticeably light, perhaps because of competition from Les Francofolies which was opening the same night as well as all the activities surrounding the Grand Prix.
Sergio had told me that he was anticipating the opening segment of the display and, indeed, it was good, though not quite as dramatic a start as I would have thought. Well sequenced comets were mixed with incredibly well timed studatas, providing the perfect counterpoint to the music.
The musical selections were good, with a range of intensity and an interesting mix of classic and modern renditions of the operatic favourites. Whilst most of the transitions were clean, some of them sounded a bit clumsy, simply fading out as the next track faded in. It’s always a challenge to select an appropriate segment from a long piece of music and unfortunately Soldi were let down somewhat in this respect.
The range of fireworks material was good – as to be expected with the products being 100% manufactured by Soldi. Good bright colours, though I found the blues on the insipid side and an excellent selection of rotating inserts of all kinds: serpents in gold and silver, tourbillons and farfalles. I was surprised there weren’t more farfalle shells though. Of course, the multi-breaks and studatas were well represented and, as I noted above, the timing between the first break and the subsequent (either sequential or shell-of-shells) breaks were very well coordinated with the music. Soldi made good use of nautical fireworks in the form of strobes, rotating fountains and shells – the latter being used to great effect and very much enjoyed by the audience. Silver girandolas were used too, fitting the serene music in that segment. Salutes were used effectively as percussive effects in several segments of the display too and a particularly memorable segment had a line of silver fountains trailing sparks into the lake as crossed silver comets were augmented by yellow photoflash shells above. Another hallmark Soldi effect was that of a line of X-shaped fountains quickly transitioning to a line of vertical firing fountains and then back to a line of X-s again. This was well timed with the music and was very effective.
Everyone expects an Italian display to have a dramatic finale and Soldi did not disappoint. The rhythm of the salutes was very well done and fronts and runs of mines created an Italian flag effect with a band of green, white and red. The pace increased with dramatic bursts from studata lambis which had particularly tight timing, creating a dramatic ripping effect of noise – two such barrages bringing the display to a close to huge cheers from the audience.
This was an enjoyable opening to the competition and it was a relief to see team Soldi shoot a display with minimal technical difficulties. The music was enjoyable, but did not quite have the range of pace and emotion that I had expected. The display design itself was of medium complexity, though the use of space was somewhat limited without too many angles. This was somewhat exacerbated by a firing position on the left hand side of the display area working intermittently. All in all, a good display, but it was missing a certain something, save for the finale, which was as good as anticipated.