Musical theater in immersive sound. The perspective and experiences of a theater sound engineer

Finally, in musical theater, you can experience something that transports you to another dimension. The sounds are not just heard, but physically felt; the tones and melodies flow through the space as if they were part of the production. With an immersive sound experience, musical theater becomes an overwhelming adventure for the senses, where the sound surrounds the listener from all sides and strikes directly at their heart.
But what technical means and instruments are available to sound engineers? How do you create a magical sound in a musical theater where many other musicians and singers are performing together live? Oleg Surgutschow reports on various approaches.

Oleg Surgutschow, Zurich Opera House

Oleg Surgutschow, a pianist with a concert diploma, is a trained sound engineer. After stints at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, among others, he has been Chief Sound Engineer at the Zurich Opera House since 2012.
Oleg Surgutschow has participated in numerous CD/DVD music productions with a focus on classical and contemporary music, and has worked as a sound engineer at Videofilm AG in Moscow in post-production, film sound and dubbing.
He has extensive expertise in the fields of theater, live sound and spatial audio.
Surgutschow has been a member of the Association of German Sound Engineers (VDT) since 1998.