Meyer Sound PANTHER Powers Cirque du Soleil ALIZÉ in Berlin

This November, Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group and Live Nation will premiere Cirque du Soleil ALIZÉ, its first-ever resident show in Europe, at Theater am Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. To bring its immersive new blend of acrobatics and la magie nouvelle to life, Cirque turned to a Meyer Sound system supplied by Solotech and designed by veteran sound designer Jean-Michel Caron.

For Caron, who has worked with Cirque du Soleil for more than 25 years in roles from monitor engineer to project manager to sound designer, ALIZÉ represents a new chapter. “I’ve done a lot of Big Top shows and arenas, but designing in a theater was so exciting,” he says. “You have a controlled acoustic space where every detail can be fine-tuned, and you can really push the mix to the maximum.”

ALIZÉ combines traditional Cirque du Soleil artistry with illusions that blur the boundaries between circus and magic, a new art form Cirque calls “Acromagic.” Performers appear and disappear, defy gravity, and move between real and surreal worlds. For Caron, that meant bringing the sound design even more to the forefront. “Sound is a character in the show,” he explains. “If you lock what happens on stage with the music and sound design, you can build suspense, move the audience to the edge of their seat, and completely change their reaction.”

He points to the show’s opening scene as an example. “The first song takes place in a bedroom that’s ten feet in the air. At first everything plays in mono from the center cluster, but the bedroom splits open, and the sound splits with it—suddenly you feel the surround come alive, and left and right appear. It’s the system reinforcing the story, almost like another performer on stage.”

That philosophy carries through the production’s spatial sound design, realized using Meyer Sound’s Spacemap Go sound design and mixing tool. “We have performers flying through the house, singers appearing in the balconies, and scenes that shift between the real world and a magical world,” says Caron. “With Spacemap Go, I can move sounds anywhere in the room—a music box on a balcony, a vocal that suddenly comes from the opposite side—and pull the audience’s focus exactly where it needs to be.”

The Meyer Sound system centers around left and right arrays of 10 PANTHER large-format linear line array loudspeakers with 4 LEOPARD downfills, flanked by ULTRA‑X82 versatile point source loudpeakers for cross-fire and a center 8-speaker PANTHER array. Low frequencies are delivered by dual cardioid hangs of three 2100‑LFC low-frequency control elements, with five 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements deployed under the stage for special effects. Additional coverage is provided by ULTRA‑X80 wide fills, three sets of time-aligned LCR ULTRA‑X20 and ULTRA‑X22 under-balcony delays and UPQ-1P and UPQ‑2P upper balcony delays, with ULTRA‑X42 stage side fills.

The Theater am Potsdamer Platz hosts the Berlin Film Festival and was already equipped with a Dolby Atmos loudspeaker system. Caron integrated those speakers into the Meyer Sound system, repurposing them as surrounds. “We’re not using the Atmos processor; it’s all running through GALAXY and Spacemap Go,” he explains. “That gave me full control and flexibility. I like that Spacemap Go doesn’t lock you into a fixed speaker layout—you can draw whatever configuration you want, and be creative.”

System optimization and spatial processing are supplied by ten Galileo GALAXY Network Platforms, with six dedicated to the P.A. and four running in Spacemap Go mode to manage approximately 64 outputs. Everything is connected via a Milan AVB network.

Caron says he chose PANTHER for its power and transparency. “Even at very low levels you hear every detail, like a bow on a cello string or a musician breathing between notes,” says Caron. “And then it can hit full rock levels in the same room with no fatigue.”

The 2100-LFC proved to be the perfect partner to PANTHER. “It goes down to 28 Hz, and it’s flat across the room,” he adds. “Every bass note is distinct—you don’t get that mushy buildup. You feel the room shake, but the note is gone when it should be, and the next one comes clean. That speed and precision were a big reason I wanted this system.”

The ALIZÉ soundtrack mixes full orchestral recordings with live performances, with vocalists, harps, clarinet, toy celesta, and kantile. “The system is so transparent that you can’t tell where the recording ends and the live musicians begin,” says Caron. “At some point you wonder if the singer’s mic is even on—it just sounds like she’s singing naturally in the room. That illusion is powerful, and it helps the magic of the show.”

For Caron, ALIZÉ raises the bar for resident Cirque du Soleil productions.“This show is different—from the illusions to the way sound and music are scored,” he says. “When we’re amazed ourselves in rehearsals, we know we’re on the right path to amaze the audience.”