Arnold Schönberg’s mono-opera Erwartung, which saw its world premiere in 1924, uses expressive tonal language to tell the story of a woman’s anguish when she discovers a corpse in the woods at night while searching for her lover. Artistic Director André Bücker transfers this emotional study of the human psyche into a rendered 360° VR world, creating an intense gaming-like experience. So Schönberg’s music can be experienced in an innovative and immersive way.
Mono-Opera by Arnold Schönberg as Single Player VR-Experience
How to transform Opera into a new era?
Thanks to the immersive effect of virtual reality, the viewer becomes part of the story: Once players put on the VR headset and pick up the control module, they are immersed in a nocturnal, eerie forest in which a woman searches for her lover. Players take on the role of the woman wandering through the forest and drive the plot through their own interactions.
Erwartung, photo: Heimspiel GmbH
The real world disappears almost completely from our perception, allowing us to immerse ourselves even more deeply in Schönberg’s music and thus experience the emotional study of the (alien) human psyche.
Bio
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Staatstheater Augsburg
DE
The Staatstheater Augsburg presents over 600 performances each year from its five divisions ballet, opera, drama, orchestra and digital theater. The digital division was founded in 2020 to explore new means of creating theater experiences.
With 360° video projects, hybrid productions connecting physical and virtual stages, online streaming, game music concerts and more, there is a wide variety of small experiments and large-scale theater productions utilizing or adressing digitality.
Credits
Idea & Director: André Bücker; Art design & production: heimspiel GmbH; Dramaturgy: Sophie Walz; Creative Director, Art Director: Frank Patzke; Unreal Engine Developer; 3D-Artist: Ludwig Blankenhagen; Unreal Engine Developer, 3D-Artist: Niklas Stich; Unreal Engine Developer: Aleksander Großmann; 3D-Artist: Andy Probst; 3D-Artist: Fabian Tomac; Sound design: Jürgen Branz; Musical direction: Domonkos Héja; Soprano: Sally du Randt
Augsburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Recording, editing, mixing, Audio montage: Moritz Kobel, Julius Busch, Christopher Heck, Christian Sonnbergen, Matthias Zimmer-Hirschmüller, Alexander Fick; Production management: Silvio Wiesner; Musical rehersal: Volker Hiemeyer, Szilvia Mikó, Michael Wagner
Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, with the kind support of Theaterfreunde Augsburg
Presented in the context of the Realities in Transition project. Realities in Transition is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
