In March Volleksbühn will take the audience on an operatic scavenger-hunt through Luxembourg City to playfully discover the diversity of opera through Augmented Reality. The show is called Opera Go. (Deutscher Text siehe unten).
The press release says: « This quirky, playful, walkabout experience mixing live performance and Augmented Reality starts off as a joyful celebration of creativity with live music loosely based on Ambroise Thomas’ Le songe d’une nuit d’été and Mozart’s Zauberflöte at De Gudde Wëllen, 17 Rue du St Esprit, in Luxembourg.
Shakespeare’s bon-vivant Falstaff is celebrating creativity and the arts at his favorite local bar. As the party is in full swing, Mozart’s Queen of the Night appears, shocked to find that her dear darling operas have literally flown out the window. She relies on the audience’s bravery to go on a quest through the city to get her beloved operas back.
Thus, the participants are sent out to free Eurydice from the underworld and to put back into order an aria of The Barber of Seville that’s been scattered in front of the Palace. You’ll have to pass through a virtual maze, and further on, a magical forest appears once you’ve hit the right rhythm. The Queen will certainly be grateful for the help.
Theatre itself is a kind of virtual or extended reality where you go to a space in order to experience something that overwrites your daily experience. The use of XR in performing arts simply provides an extension of the kind of experience that theatre already invites its audiences to explore. »
Anne Simon, who initiated the project says: « I brewed up the original idea for Opera GO in a discussion with my long-term musical collaborator, cellist, singer and performer Anthime Miller whilst talking about ways to explore to take opera “to the streets” and the possibility to use the potential of new technology to democratize access to high art by creating an entry point via pop cultural forms.
Theaters were not historically the dark, hushed spaces that they are today. Ancient playwrights often wrote the audience into the architecture of their plays. In Shakespeare’s history plays for instance, the kings often speak to their troops by turning to the audience, many of whom would have been soldiers at one point in their lives. Here, we use technology to enable audiences to reenact that older mode of spectatorship. So we started by asking what creative and staging choices we can build in that make the audience members feel like they’re really part of the story?
Turning to AR, we flip the idea of audience participation on its head. On top of the audience being built into the architecture of the play (being Papageno), we also place the play inside the architecture of everyday spaces. It’s about the enchantment of theatricalizing non-theatrical spaces and thus discovering that theatre/opera/the arts – the imaginative – is all around us, if only we let it.
By placing a work of performing arts in someone’s living room or a public space, we can close the distance between the audience and stories which are often perceived as hermetic. The performers are not on a raised stage in a dark room, far away from the quiet, orderly people in the auditorium. They are in your living room, in your local pub or park. The personalizing of stories that have seemed separate from us creates an intimacy with those stories that spark curiosity. The playful mood of the operatic scavenger hunt adds an element of interactive gaming and immersive discovery that comes unexpectedly in the context of an opera and should trigger curiosity and strike down barriers. The obvious link with a game like Pokémon Go should take the fright of the high art and stress the accessibility for everyone.
A Volleksbühn Production
Concept & Direction – Anne Simon
Musical Direction – Anthime Miller
With Jean Bermes, Nataša Grujović, Marie-Christiane Nishimwe
AR – Kreativstuff
Visual Designs – Dirk Kesseler, Anne Simon
Trainee – Lea Lieser
Partners – Lucilin, De Gudde Wëllen, CNA, Ecole de Musique Régionale Dudelange
No experience in AR needed. You will need to bring your smartphone and ideally your best pair of earphones. The app is compatible with IOS and Android. Performance takes place indoors and outdoors (about 2k walk), dress accordingly.
Shows start at De Gudde Wëllen, March 2024: 1st (3pm), 2nd, 23rd, 24th (3 & 5pm)
April 2024: 10th, 11th, 12th (6.30pm)
Tickets: 20€ (reg), 8€ (concessions), Kulturpass welcome.
Bookings: anne@volleksbuehn.lu
Featured Operas: Live (performed by Marie-Christiane Nishimwe, Jean Bermes, Nataša Grujović), Ambroise Thomas, Le Songe d’une Nuit d’été (excerpts)
W.A. Mozart, Der Hölle Rache, Die Zauberflöte
Augmented Reality: (performed by Marie-Christiane Nishimwe, Jean Bermes, United
Instruments of Lucilin with Anthime Miller)
Claudio Monteverdi, Possente Spirito, L’Orfeo 1607
Henry Purcell, Dido’s Lament, Dido and Aeneas, 1688
Jean-Philippe Rameau, Forêts Paisibles, Les Indes Galantes, 1735
W.A. Mozart, Don Giovanni, Don Giovanni, 1787
Gioachino Rossini, Ouverture, Il Barbieri di Siviglia, 1816
Richard Wagner, Walkürenritt, Die Walküre, 1856
DEUTSCH
Opera Go ist eine Opern-Schnitzeljagd durch die Altstadt Luxemburg, um spielerisch die Vielfalt der Oper durch Augmented Reality zu entdecken. Diese schräge, verspielte Walkabout-Experience verbindet Live-Performance und Augmented Reality. Alles beginnt mit einer fröhlichen Feier mit Live-Musik, frei nach Ambroise Thomas’ Le songe d’une nuit d’été und Mozarts Zauberflöte im Cafe De Gudde Wëllen.
Shakespeares Lebemann Falstaff feiert in seiner Lieblingskneipe die Kreativität und die Künste. Als die Party in vollem Gange ist, erscheint Mozarts Königin der Nacht und stellt entsetzt fest, dass ihre geliebten Opern buchstäblich zum Fenster rausgeflogen sind. Sie verlässt sich auf den Mut des Publikums, um ihre geliebten Opern wieder einzufangen.
Team – Anne Simon, Anthime Miller, Jean Bermes, Nataša Grujović,
Marie-Christiane Nishimwe, Kreativstuff, Dirk Kesseler, Lea Lieser
Praktische Informationen
Keine Erfahrung mit AR erforderlich.
Die Shows beginnen im De Gudde Wëllen, 17, rue du St. Esprit in Luxemburg.
Bringen Sie Ihr Smartphone und idealerweise Ihre besten Kopfhörer mit. Die App ist kompatibel mit IOS und Android.
Die Vorstellung findet drinnen und draußen statt (ca. 2 km Fußweg), ziehen Sie sich entsprechend an.
Tickets kosten 20€ (regulär), 8€ (Studenten, Theaterprofis),
Kulturpass willkommen.
Partner – Lucilin, De Gudde Wëllen, CNA, Ecole de Musique Régionale Dudelange
