Augsburg Theatre mixes opera performance with VR for the first time

Theatre productions create artificial worlds on stage - largely in the audience's imagination. In the future, computer-generated worlds with VR will offer even more possibilities.

The Augsburg State Theatre wants to mix a real production with VR for the first time in an opera production. Around 500 VR glasses will therefore be distributed to the audience from 16 May for the performance of the opera "Orfeo ed Euridice" ("Orpheus and Eurydice", premiere 1762) by Christoph Willibald Gluck. In several scenes, the audience will then experience the underworld in the play via computer animation.

First major VR production

According to the state theatre, a VR production on this scale is new in Germany. "It's never been done on this scale before," said theatre director André Bücker on Monday. The audience will experience three sequences of the opera production, totalling around half an hour in length, via VR glasses.

Some theatres in Germany have been experimenting with VR technology for some time now. The Bavarian State Opera, for example, invites interested parties to a short tour of the theatre using VR glasses in.

Explore the underworld via virtual reality

In of the Augsburg production In one scene, the audience then moves virtually through a canyon of tower blocks into the underworld and finally finds itself directly between computer-animated figures. The audience alternates between experiencing the classic stage action and the digital underworld via VR glasses. The 3D scenes will be realised by Heimspiel, an agency specialising in this technology, with whom the Staatstheater has previously collaborated. The performance is a co-production with the Ingolstadt City Theatre.

Bücker can imagine that this technology could become the fifth branch of theatre in the future, alongside the four classic branches of spoken theatre, musical theatre, dance theatre and puppet theatre. This could give rise to a digital theatre division. "There is a dimension that can still be developed." This has the advantage that it is not spatially limited like the normal stage. "You can do anything," said Bücker, but also emphasised: "No, we don't want to replace analogue theatre."

This means that VR will probably reach a completely new, primarily older target audience.

Source: Heise / state theatre-augsburg