RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

follovved the actors’ breathing, slowing down or speeding up the dramatic rhythm, fannmg the intensity from pianissimo to fortissimo. With the contrasting objective comments of the narrator, superimposed on it this drama took on the cold balance of a philosophical tract. A similar technique was used in a programme devoted to the poetry of Vasko Popa and broadcast in French, in which the composer Dušan Radić and the sound engineer M. Radojčić and the vocal group »Singidunum« searched for a new form of expression by synthetizing ancient, ritual and modem electric sound. THE ELECTRONIC TRANSFORMATION OF VOICE AND SOUND The part played by the sound engineer in this sub-area is unbelievably difficult. The technique is complex and requtres a lot of rehearsal and close cooperation with the producer and actor. A great number of »hot« rehearsals аге necessary. The first experiment of this kind in 1967 was successfully carried out by the producer Jovan Đurić, the actress Radmila Andrić and the sound engineer M. Radojčić in Ugo Betti’s drama The Goat Island. The actress had to adjust her interpretation to the millimetre-precise possibilities of the technique. In appraising the work of sound engineer Petar Marić, the јигу justified its decision to give him the award for the recording of Wolfgang Weihrauch’s drama Signal: »The invention and ingenity shown by the sound engineer in applying this technique (the task here had been to differentiate the lines spoken by one actor playing a number of parts) led to the creation, not only of absolutely different individual voice colours, pitches and other characteristics for each particular part played, but also to a consistent harmonisation of these elements in every character so that they created a tempo which was in accordance with the dramatic construction of individual and group sequences. The symbolism of the dramatic events portrayed was given its corresponding dynamic movement, and unclear but ambientally defined distant and near space - a sort of eternal »of this world« space. The voice in the street or in the square was excdy located somewhere in space« by bouncing a short echo from walls 15 to 20 metres apart, and a certain amount of reverberation. The commander, one of the characters in the drama, was symbo!ised by using unlimited space. In scenes which were repeated the voices were heard coming one after another in three ог four different places in a particular sequence, and always at the same distance from the stereo , base (and not from one loudspeaker to another). »The execution scene in the square in the presence of the judge, the executioner and the crowd was stressed by fitting the music of Penderecki into it, (as selected by Ivana Stefanović). The pace at which the voices are