Figaro Systems

Infobox_Company
company_name = Figaro Systems, Inc.
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = 1993
location_city = Santa Fe, New Mexico
location_country =United States
key_people = Patrick Markle, President and CEO, Geoff Webb, VP
homepage = [http://www.figarosystems.com]

Figaro Systems, Inc. is an American company that provides seatback and wireless titling software and system installations to opera houses and other music performance venues worldwide. The company is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was established in 1993 [ Andrew Webb, “Opera Subtitle Firm Eyes New Game,” "New Mexico Business Weekly", Nov. 21, 2003 [http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2003/11/24/story2.html] ] by Patrick Markle, Geoff Webb, and Ron Erkman [ Figaro Systems Official Website [http://www.figaro-systems.com/about.php] ] and was the first company to provide assistive technology that enables individualized, simultaneous, multi-lingual dialogue and libretto-reading for audiences. [ David Belcher, “Nothing Lost in Translation: Video system allows patrons to read words on chair backs,” "Albuquerque Journal", June 4, 2006. [http://www.highbeam.com/DocPrint.aspx?DocID=1P2:115622912] ]

History

Figaro Systems grew out of a conversation in 1992 among three opera colleagues: Patrick Markle, at that time Technical Director of the Santa Fe Opera, Geoffrey Webb, Design Engineer for the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York, and Ronald Erkman, then a technician for the Met. At that time, opera houses had two options for the display of libretto and dialogue subtitles: projection onto a large screen above the stage or onto smaller screens throughout the theatre. The translation, moreover, was in a single language. [ Dennis Domrzalski, "Figaro: Eyes translate when ears don't get it," "New Mexico Business Weekly", Apr. 8, 2005 [http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2005/04/11/story5.html?q=Figaro%20Systems] ]

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 had recently been enacted; Markle was trying to solve the problem of venues' lack of accessibility to patrons with disabilities, including the profoundly deaf. Markle, Webb, and Erkman devised the first prototype of a personal seatback titling device. John Crosby of the Santa Fe Opera saw its potential for opera patrons. [ Figaro Systems Official Website. About [http://www.figaro-systems.com/about.php] ] Markle, Webb, and Erkman were further reinforced by their understanding of technology’s role in remediating the physical barriers people encounter, worldwide, which frustrate or prevent their access to the visual performing arts. [ “User-friendly art: In-seat text displays that subtitle and translate.” "Auditoria", May 2007 [http://figarosystems.com/linkdownloads/052007_figaro_auditoria_article.pdf] ] Markle, Webb, and Erkman applied for and were granted patents for their invention. [ United States Patent 5,739,869, "Electronic libretto display apparatus and method," issued April 14, 1998. United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Full-Text and Image Database [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=11&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=figaro.ASNM.&OS=AN/figaro&RS=AN/Figaro] ] [ Los Alamos Laboratory, "Daily News Bulletin", May 7, 2001 [http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/pa/News/050701.html] ]

Philanthropist and investor Alberto Vilar counted Figaro Systems among the companies in which he was a majority shareholder. [ Robert Hilferty, "A Knight at the Opera," "New York Magazine", Jan. 14, 2002 [http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/music/features/5616/] ] [ "Alberto Vilar: The Privileges of Wealth," The Free Encyclopedia [http://biography.jrank.org/pages/3490/Vilar-Alberto-1940-Investor-Philanthropist-Privileges-Wealth.html] ] He donated the company's electronic libretto system to European venues including The Royal Opera House in London, The La Scala's Teatro degli Arcimboldi opera houses in Milan, Italy, The Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, and The Wiener Staatsoper in Wien, Austria. Consequences of his failures to pay promised donations most of these theatres lost a lot of money.In 2005 the Met charged the New Mexico company with unlawfully using its name in advertising promoting its " ' Simultext ' system which defendant claims can display a simultaneous translation of an opera as it occurs on a stage and that defendant represented that its system is installed at the Met." [ Timothy E. Eble, "Class Action Litigation Information" [http://classactionlitigation.com/library/consumerlaw2006update.html#_edn173#_edn173] ]

Products and Technology

The company’s products are known variously as seat back titles, surtitles, [ Eric Skelly, "Surtitles at the Opera," "Public Radio News and Information in Houston, Texas", KUHF 88.7 FM Houston Public Radio [http://app1.kuhf.org/houston_public_radio-news-display.php?articles_id=20614] ] electronic libretto systems, opera supertitles, projected titles, and libretto translations. Opera venues have utilized the system to display librettos in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish, [ "Sandia helps 278 state businesses in 2004 through New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program," Sandia National Laboratories, Sandia Corporation, March 22, 2005 [http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2005/tech-trans/smbusiness.html] ] although the software enables the reading of the libretto in any written language. [ “Giving the Opera a New Voice,” "Entertainment Engineering," Volume 4, Issue 2, p. 6 [http://www.entertanmentengineering.com/v4.issue04/page.06.html] ] Translation is provided by one screen and delivery system per person. [ Figaro Systems Official Website [http://www.figarosystems.com] ]

Typically, but not in all cases, the system is permanently installed along the backs of rows of seats. Each screen is positioned so that the text is clearly visible to each user. The displays were intitially available in vacuum fluorescent display, (VFD) and, in 2000, liquid crystal display, (LCD) was used. In 2004 the displays became available with organic light-emitting diode, (OLED) screens. Each type of display provides the same text information and program annotation on eight channels simultaneously, may be turned off by the user, and is user-operated with a single button. The company’s software is capable of supporting venues’ existing systems as well as its own "Simultext" system. The software enables cueing of each line as it is sung, and it appears instantly on the screen. [ “Giving the Opera a New Voice,” "Entertainment Engineering," Volume 4, Issue 2, p. 6 [http://www.entertanmentengineering.com/v4.issue04/page.06.html] ] The company builds fully modular systems including its wireless handheld screens [ United States Patent 6,760,010. "Wireless electronic libretto display apparatus and method," issued July 6, 2004: United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent Full-Text and Image Database [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=3&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=figaro.ASNM.&OS=AN/figaro&RS=AN/Figaro] ] for users who cannot use seatback systems, for example people in wheelchairs, who may be viewing the opera in areas lacking seatback viewing, or people with compromised eyesight.

Venues

In the US, the company’s systems are in use in The Ellie Caulkins Opera House [ Marc Shulgold, "Opera dialogue shows on seat in front of you," "Rocky Mountain News" (Denver, Colorado), Sep. 3, 2005 [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-135788390.html] ] in Denver, Colorado, The Santa Fe Opera in Santa Fe, [ Santa Fe Opera, Santa Fe, NM. Cached webpage [http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:wsuAFBMw2LAJ:www.santafeopera.org/yournite/operatitles.php+Santa+Fe+Opera+Figaro+Systems&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1] ] The Brooklyn Academy of Music, [ “An Operatic Performance,” "Appliance Magazine", June 2007 [http://www.appliancemagazine.com/editorial.php?article=1768&zone=210&first=1] ] The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, New York, the Met (there called "MetTitles") [ Figaro Systems Official Website. Installations [http://www.figaro-systems.com/installations.php] ] , The Roy E. Disney Theatre in Albuquerque's National Hispanic Cultural Center, McCaw Hall in Seattle Washington, The Opera Theatre of St. Louis in St. Louis, Missouri, The Des Moines Metro Opera in Des Moines, Iowa and The Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri. [ Figaro Systems Official Website. About [http://www.figaro-systems.com/about.php] ]

In the UK and Europe, the systems have been installed in venues including The Royal Opera House in London, The Teatro alla Scala and La Scala's Teatro degli Arcimboldi opera houses in Milan, Italy, The Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, and The Wiener Staatsoper in Wien, Austria. [ “Giving the Opera a New Voice,” "Entertainment Engineering.", Volume 4, Issue 2, p. 6 [http://www.entertanmentengineering.com/v4.issue04/page.06.html] ]

Awards

In 2001 the company won the Los Alamos Laboratories’ Technology Commercialization Award for its Simultext system. [ Todd Hanson, "Los Alamos announces technology commercialization awards," "Los Alamos National Laboratory News", Los Alamos National Security, LLC, US Department of Energy's NNSA, May 7, 2001 [http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/1170] ] In 2008 the company’s software was one of four finalists for the Excellence Award for Commercial Software awarded by the New Mexico Information Technology and Software Association. In its announcement of the Finalist position, the Association called the company “innovators and global leaders,” and recognized the instantaneous display feature's value, asserting "there is nothing worse than a punch line arriving late.” [ "Finalists for the Excellence Award for Commercial Software," New Mexico Information Technology and Software Association, Oct. 10, 2006 [http://www.nmitsa.org/blog/entry/finalists_for_solution_awards/] ]

References

External Links

* “The Expectation of Experience,” The International Society for the Performing Arts Foundation, (Rye, New York), 60th Annual Conference, Jan. 8 - 10, 2008. Speaker Bio of Patrick Markle [http://www.ispa.org/ny08/bios.php]