# An Opera Question



## Marius (Nov 4, 2011)

In the excellent documentary Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle there is a shot of a tech walking around spraying a fine mist into the air with a Hudson sprayer. I can't for the life of me figure out what he's doing, and every time I show my Stagecraft class this movie someone asks. Does anyone here have a clue what that is?


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## Footer (Nov 4, 2011)

Possibly throwing humidity into the room for the singers voices. Humidity control for singers can be very important. This is one of those things that does not really help but it makes everyone feel better, kind of like charging glow tape.


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## ptero (Nov 4, 2011)

We do this as well for musicals to fight the dryness. Some drink the Kool-Aid that says it helps. I'm not so sure, but it doesn't hurt and performers appreciate the effort.


Footer said:


> Possibly throwing humidity into the room for the singers voices. Humidity control for singers can be very important. This is one of those things that does not really help but it makes everyone feel better, kind of like charging glow tape.


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## Marius (Nov 4, 2011)

Hmm, interesting. My closest theory was that the water would grab airborne dust and drop it to the floor. Thanks.


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## mstaylor (Nov 4, 2011)

Definitely one of those things that may have a very minor effect but definitely makes the singers happy.


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## drummerboi316 (Nov 4, 2011)

Footer said:


> This is one of those things that does not really help but it makes everyone feel better, kind of like charging glow tape.



WHAAAATTTT??!!?!?!!??! :shock:


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## Robert (Nov 4, 2011)

Marius said:


> In the excellent documentary Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle there is a shot of a tech walking around spraying a fine mist into the air with a Hudson sprayer. I can't for the life of me figure out what he's doing, and every time I show my Stagecraft class this movie someone asks. Does anyone here have a clue what that is?


 
Its for the dust. The mist will pull the dust out of the air. They do it after set changes for the singers throats. It actually does work. You can notice the difference in person, not so obvious in the tape. Just showed the video to my class and they asked the same question.


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## MPowers (Nov 5, 2011)

This is a common practice in Opera companies. Many singers actually have it in their contracts that this must be done no sooner than half hour and repeated at intermission. I first encountered it while in grad school and working at IUMAC the opera theatre at Indiana University. Later I worked for 10 years with the Arkansas Opera Theatre a part of Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts and it was a standard company practice. The "misting" or "spritzing" reduces the dust content of the air and temporarily increases the humidity, both beneficial for the voice.


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## kiwitechgirl (Nov 5, 2011)

If you go through all our old show reports (Opera Australia) you'll often find reports of singers requesting the air be misted to help with the dryness. For some reason I always find the Opera House to be particularly dehydrating anyway (I always drink way more water when I'm there than I do anywhere else) so it's very common with us too.

Offtopic, I love that documentary - we're scheduled to do the Ring Cycle in November 2013, god help us all (my flatmate is the orchestra's Associate Principal trombone, who will probably be playing the bass trumpet part - he's already practicing it!), and I've been loaning my copy of it to a few people in the company and everyone loves it!


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