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| Trompe l'Oeil Carces september 2007 |
30.9.07
Det romerske teater i Orange
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| Det romerske teater i Orange |
It’s 20 centuries later, and the acoustics still can’t be beat
Sometime around the birth of Jesus, the Romans built a 7,000-seat theater at Arausio in southern France, a former capital of the now vanquished Celts. It was a conventional design, with its steeply tiered rows of benches forming a semicircle around the proscenium. It was also big. The stage, varying in depth from 40 to 50 feet, ran 210 feet along the base of the theater’s great 120-foot-high, 340-foot-wide stage wall. The castle-like wall, with its entranceways and exits, featured the obligatory statue of Caesar in an arched niche above stage center.
Besides its bold dimensions, where the theater defied convention was in its superb acoustics. Even the cheapest ticket in the house, for a seat situated at the theater’s highest and furthest point, bought its holder an ability to hear stage whispers without straining. Roman engineers had succeeded in building a provincial theater that became known throughout the empire.
Two thousand years later, on several counts, we moderns are just as impressed at the site as the Romans were. The great acoustics come through the centuries intact, thanks to the preservation of the massive stage wall, which did not suffer onslaughts from quarrying, vandals or destructive earthquakes. With the exception of old stone seats, which had become eroded and broken (they were restored in the 19th century), the theater had weathered 20 centuries remarkably well. Even the statue of Caesar above the stage remained steadfast in its niche.
That power of endurance was what led UNESCO to name the theater at present-day Orange in France’s Rhone Valley (named after the Dutch royal house that once owned it) a World Heritage Site in 1981, describing it as “one of the best preserved of all the great Roman theaters.”
The theater is so well preserved that it’s still used as a musical and theatrical venue. One of the most notable annual events that take place there is Les Chorégies d'Orange, an annual lyric festival that relies on the Roman theater’s remarkable acoustics to present unamplified operas, oratorios and choral works. Les Chorégies, which started in 1860, is presented every summer and has become one of the region’s most venerated musical festivals.
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