Last year they could not have imagined that their opera would be the project of the hour in times of pandemic. Lengers and Karnapke have been working on their \"Theatre of Virtual Reality\" since 2015 - and have thus created a completely new art form. Their projects - they are currently working on their twelfth virtual production - move at the interface between game, theatre and virtual reality spectacle. And thus open up completely new perspectives.<\/p>\n
With VR goggles on your face, headphones on your ears and the joystick in your hand, you move through the virtual worlds they create. You fly through sounds and spaces. For their \"Freisch\u00fctz\" they created four 15-minute episodes, one for each of the four protagonists Max, Kaspar, Agathe and \u00c4nnchen. Bj\u00f6rn Lengers and Marcel Karnapke do not tell the \"Freisch\u00fctz\" story linearly. The four protagonists, their motives, their joys, their fears are approached in fragments.<\/p>\n
You follow a kind of DNA strand that winds itself into a huge wreath - a wreath of the dead, as if woven from dead roots. Later you manoeuvre through a huge labyrinth, there is no exit. Then you are in a house whose roof and walls are made of sparkling stars. You dive into the sounds, into the worlds - plunge down into the flame-red underground beneath the house, float out through the walls into a forest of lights, Weber's music disappears, a queasy droning grows louder the further you move away from the house. That suddenly becomes smaller and smaller and smaller until it has disappeared altogether.<\/p>\n
The perfect illusion is not their goal, says Bj\u00f6rn Lengers. They don't want to build perfect worlds, but tell a story. He is delighted when people find contact through this \"Freisch\u00fctz\", opera lovers to VR technology, digital enthusiasts to opera. And: this Digital Freisch\u00fctz is also absolutely suitable for virtual reality novices.<\/p>\n