On the Testing of Renovations Inside Historical Opera Houses

Acoustics in the restoration of Italian historical opera houses: A review

“…Acoustical motivations stemming from the decrease in surface porosity and from past experience has led to the conclusion that only high frequencies are affected (>2 kHz), but medium and lower frequencies are untouched by the polishing of hard surfaces. This was confirmed in [13] where a substantial part of the increase in reverberation time in the higher frequency range (the so-called valuable "patina" of sound) was traced back to the above surfaces. In this respect, one can note that such change is mostly welcomed since the sound is more brilliant and vivid, and historical opera houses are almost never abundant in high frequency sound.…”

“…Moreover, even for some outstanding theatres, only a descriptive summary of interventions is provided, with few [10] or no acoustical data and no detailed technical account of the strategies, measures and simulations employed to check the acoustics during the complex renovation process. Some more detailed reports can be found, which present a comparison of ante-operam and post-operam acoustics [11][12][13][14] or computer simulations and some relevant design details to be implemented in the refurbishments [15][16][17]. Some other works outline a schedule for the acoustical design in the renovations and focus on possible improvements [18,19] or specific issues such as stage-house enlargement [20,21].…”