Follow-Me Plays Vital Role In The Production Of Der Freischütz

Follow-Me has played a vital role in the production of Der Freischütz at the Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria with its Follow-Me 3D SIX and Follow-Me Track-iT systems.

The production, held on the festival's iconic 2,500 square metre stage on Lake Constance, presented unique technical challenges requiring both automated and manual tracking capabilities to accommodate performers emerging from water and navigating complex steel structures.

Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz captivated audiences in German director Philipp Stölzl's extraordinary production, reaching approximately 374,000 people across 55 performances during the 2024/25 seasons. Stölzl, who served as director and designer for both stage and lighting, created a spooky, poetic world for this romantic horror story. The production depicts the love between hereditary forester's daughter Agathe and young clerk Max, who fights for his lover's hand in marriage amidst a barren winter landscape of crooked, half-submerged houses, tree limbs, and horse skeletons, under the watchful eyes of suspicious villagers.

Taking place over July and August with lighting design and programming handled by Florian Schmitt, Bregenzer Festspiele's annual large-scale opera production is renowned worldwide for its innovative set designs and technical complexity. This year's production of Der Freischütz featured 22 steel trees rising from the lake, seven light towers with between three and 10 lights each, and a front truss behind the audience area housing an additional eight fixtures used as follow-spots.

Riccardo Zottele, Follow-Me System Admin for the production, explains the scale of the challenge: "It's a massive stage, so the lighting has to illuminate the whole area, and sometimes only parts of it,” he says. “The designers have to work not only with the artificial light, but also because the show starts at around 9pm, so they have to work with the sunset."

The production team chose Follow-Me's Track-iT system as the primary automated tracking solution, supplemented by Follow-Me 3D SIX for manual backup operations. The hybrid approach proved essential given the tricky environmental conditions.

The Follow-Me Track-iT system, supplied by LMP Lichttechnik, utilised 25 anchors strategically positioned around the stage area to track eight performers. Seven performers were tracked using automated tracking, while one required fully manual operation due to the complexity of his movements and, despite initial concerns about interference from water and steel, the system performed flawlessly: "He jumps in and out of the water, he climbs up the steel trees, and he has a wetsuit with a leather costume over the top," Zottele explains.

The production deployed 33 fixtures controlled through the Follow-Me system. To handle the challenging transitions between automated and manual tracking, the team integrated a Eurolite Scene Setter fader wing for seamless Z-height control. The complex topography of the set, which rises to around 10 metres at its highest point, required around 400 calibration points to ensure accurate tracking across the village-inspired landscape.

"It's really great that you can switch between manual and automated tracking," notes Zottele. "We don't have all the areas where performers go up measured out. For example, there is a bed that lifts up with a hydraulic arm, and we don't have the bed measured out in the top position, so we made a preset where if it's at the top, the default height reflects that."

Follow-Me's capabilities extended beyond lighting applications. The system provided OSC data to the audio department for spatial audio tracking. Clemens Wannemacher, Head of the Sound Department at Festspielhaus Bregenz, praises the integration. "Follow-Me produces OSC data of all the sources, and we route this OSC data through our complex network into our 3D audio renderer that was custom-built by the Fraunhofer Institute,” he says. “The Follow-Me system really helps you pinpoint where each of the performers are from an audio perspective."

Christian ‘Rocketchris’ Glatthor, Production Designer, System Integrator and Tracking Specialist who supplied four Follow-Me servers for the production, emphasises the system's unique suitability for the festival's requirements.

"There’s no production in the world with as much inspiration, new technology, set design out of the box, and audio design out of the box. Bregenz is special in every department," he says. "Because the stage changes every two years, they needed a completely hybrid system that can be operated manually and with full tracking. The Follow-Me system was the winner, because it is good value for money and has a small footprint; you can fit the whole setup into two small flight cases."

Glatthor highlights the system's versatility: "It's not just a follow-spot system. It's a creative, scalable tool all in one package. Creatively you can do so much more with a tool like this. For Bregenz, there is no other technology that can handle this kind of situation with a production spanning such a large area, with so much water etc. on the set."

The Bregenzer Festspiele’s production of Der Freischütz demonstrates Follow-Me's capability to deliver reliable performer tracking in the most demanding live performance environments, combining automated precision with manual flexibility to support world-class artistic productions.

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