Clavinova Lends Dramatic Sound Effects to "Tosca"

Puccini's "Tosca," one of the most stirring operatic masterpieces of all time, was presented by the Opera Pacific Company at California's Orange County Performing Arts Center in February. A Clavinova CVP98 was onstage for all four performances, garnering rave reviews for its convincing portrayal of a real church pipe organ, a series of bells and even a cannon's roar.

"The Clavinova produced a classic big-hall sound, one that wouldn't have been possible without pumping a real pipe organ," says Assistant Technical Director Tim Clarke. The CVP98 also recreated the realistic sound of firing cannons, signaling the prisoner's escape, and a series of tubular bells that sounded just like pealing church bells.

Clarke credits Yamaha Keyboard Division Product Manager Cameron Shearer as the mastermind who used digital sound production techniques to generate these special effects for Chorus Master Henri Venanzi. "Cameron engineered the sounds, gave me a detailed operations guide and recorded the cannon sounds onto a disk for us," says Clarke, explaining that Shearer took a shotgun blast and manipulated it digitally, stretching it out to give it more punch. "He did an excellent job and put in a lot of time and effort to make this work smoothly for us. He tried several different instruments to get just the right effects. Cameron really put his best foot forward."