Unorthodox Opera

Like virtual reality for video and film, the arrival of new technologies in the artistic scene have led to innovations to advance the future of musical composition and expression.

New interfaces for both professional virtuosi and amateur music lovers; the development of advanced techniques for interpreting and mapping expressive gestures; and the application of these technologies in innovative compositions, work to enhance music as performance art and to establish its transformative power.

French artist, weaver, and Villa Albertine resident Chloé Bensahel explores a new side of music in her exhibition Tisser l’Hybride. Using tactile elements, her multimedia textile creations recite a Byzantine chant, expressing the melancholy and power of migratory experiences. 

Similarly, as part of his Resonance project, Villa Albertine resident and British visual artist Oliver Beer, known for his immersive live performances, highlights vocal performances that stimulate the natural harmony of built structures, reflecting a disarmingly visceral relationship between the audience and interior spaces. This project will even be extended, under the name Resonance Project: The Cave : this installation transforms the paleolithic cave of La Grotte de Font-de-Gaume in France into an immersive 8-screen video installation and a 16-channel sound installation, featuring an octet of singers, including Rufus Wainwright, Woodkid, eee gee, Mélissa Laveaux, Hamed Sinno, Jean Christophe Brizard, Mo’Ju and Michiko Takahashi. The latter play specific notes that cause the cave to respond with its own powerful voice, creating a surreal, almost supernatural sound that fills the cave and eclipses their voices. Recently, in New York, the artist also put his innovative vision of musical staging on display with his Resonance Paintings – Cat Orchestra exhibition, immersing visitors in an immersive soundscape enabled by the notes played on a revisited version of a Katzenklavier, a singular instrument imagined by the philosopher Athanasius Kircher in 1650.

Digital technology additionally offers impressive and nearly endless opportunities for stage performances. Performers can showcase stunning visual effects and interactive elements, bringing a unique and imaginative universe to life and reinventing the audience-performer relationship.

In line with these advancements, opera, though still perceived as elitist, is becoming more democratic and accessible to all, with many opera houses looking to attract new audiences. In the United States, for example, Opera Parallel (San Francisco) is challenging traditional opera norms by incorporating multimedia elements, technology, and unconventional staging.

The same is true for Long Beach Opera (Long Beach) and the Prototype Festival (New York), which aim to welcome artistic innovators in the fields of production, staging, and music. Peruvian artist Pauchi Sasaki has launched projects reflecting his experience as a composer, performer, improv actor, and film director, which combine musical compositions with multimedia performance design and the application of new technologies to form an interactive experience.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, the Opéra de Lorraine is also opting for modernity and innovation, featuring an android robot in a revival of Haynd’s oratorio La Création, staged in February 2024 by Kevin Barz, and hosted live in virtual reality in the Metaverse on the Sansar platform. 

Though these recents developments seem exciting, a multitude of technological, economic, and societal challenges and questions persist, especially in their application in the realm of classical music.

How can we foster and encourage innovation and transformative initiatives while still honoring the traditions of opera and ballet?  How do opera houses, orchestras, and performers confront these challenges to craft digital experiences combining artistic innovation, sustainability, and social bonding? How are technological advances transforming the world of opera? How can we improve sustainability and inclusivity in the performing arts? Are we approaching a digital revolution?

Opera, An Industry in Need of Reinvention and Innovation

Almost 400 years after the creation of the musical style, opera seems to be at the end of an era in which the need for renewal seems vital. Laurence Equilbey, French conductor and musical director of Insula orchestra and accentus, observes that “the world of opera is often at an impasse”.

This criticism relates to the artistic aspect of the works, where “the librettos of well-known works are twisted to the extreme in their dramaturgy.” In her opinion, rather than focusing on the transposition of the original librettos, “we need to concentrate on the aesthetics of interpretation.”

However, this desired artistic openness and renewal must not negate what has already been done: ” It’s always quite satisfying to universalize a narrative, but it has to be done subtly. You don’t want to erase too much of the original so that the opera remains coherent.” While these arguments may leave the most conservative skeptical, it would seem that this in-between approach may well find its audience. Indeed, Beth Morrisson, one of the leading American creators and producers of new opera and music theaters, honored as one of Musical America’s Artists of the Year/Agents of Change in 2020, claims that the positive impact of this new artistic direction is visible, as due to the post-pandemic period, “new audiences are interested in the new work, and we’re finding that communities that never came to the opera are now showing up.” To ensure the longevity and continued success of this art form, it is therefore necessary to “continue to program diverse work that speaks to many audiences.”

Moreover, rather than an outdated artistic model, the sector’s economic situation is no longer sustainable, making it all the more necessary to secure its future by seeking out a wider audience. Julia Lagahuzère, founder of Opera for Peace, a platform enabling artists to exchange views on major issues, promote cultural exchanges, and organize events around the world, explains the funding difficulties facing opera houses in France: “France in particular, which is largely financed by public funding and therefore not as vulnerable as US institutions, is unfortunately also affected due to budget cuts and outside factors such as inflation.”

The opera world is being suffocated by inflation in raw materials, salaries, and energy costs. For 2023, 190 performances have been cancelled by opera houses and orchestras. This represents a loss of 200,000 spectators, according to the Forces Musicales Union. For her, the facts are clear, “we therefore need to support opera professionals as much as we can by finding alternative funding, being creative, and appealing to new audiences by showing more diversity on stage”.

New Technologies as Creative Leverage for a New Audience?

For many orchestra conductors and opera producers, the need for renewal today involves using new technologies in their artistic works. As briefly explained above, the use of emerging technologies does not have to erase the origins of art, and it is by balancing authenticity with innovation that artistic projects will attract more attention, as explained by Salomé Chatriot, a French artist, known for combining 3D modeling, sculptures, performances, and interactive installations, and winner of the Prix Opline in 2019: “I believe traditional Opera can be reinterpreted to spread, be accessible by a wide public and new technologies facilitating the process by creating empathy bridges between the performers and the audience. A kind of new Sublime rising from antique representation mechanisms crossing with contemporary ones”.

Similarly, Julia Lagahuzère claims the legitimacy of a “traditional theatre stage craft juxtaposed with emerging art forms,” where there is no conflict between protecting musical heritage and new modes of expression. To achieve a satisfying result, Ben Kutner, a composer, arranger, and artistic director based in New York and having presented works at venues, such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Morgan Library & Museum, and the National Opera Center, maintains that the two must be blended seamlessly to reach a new audience : “rather than taking new technology and simply throwing it on top of existing operas, composers can explore operas in which the technology itself informs the music. (…) If we can give audiences this experience, opera will expand in every sense”.

Laurence Equilbey spoke about her personal experience and the need to combine lyrical music and digital technologies within his Insula Orchestra structure, insisting in particular on the multiplication of artistic perspectives: “From the outset of our journey with Insula Orchestra, we recognized the importance of merging classical art with today’s digital tools. Digital technology opens many doors to a work of art, offering vast creative and innovative possibilities. These range from sound exploration (sound design, etc.) to interactivity, music visualization, augmented performance, and accessibility. One of the main motivations for using new technologies is primarily artistic. It enables us to shed new light on certain works.” Her Beethoven Wars project, presented at La Seine Musicale in May 2024, is the perfect example of integrating digital formats in artistic creations. This immersive manga-motion production featuring two rarely played incidental pieces by Beethoven offered an immersive experience to a large audience: “63% of the audience were first-timers, 50% of whom were under 20.” For Laurence Equilbey, this success is to be renewed, with “VR versions to run in parallel with this show in 2025,” justifying the fact that “apart from opera, classical music shows can evolve more rapidly as they develop lighter forms. In this context, the contribution of new technologies is major”.

An Opportunity to Integrate New Actors

The use of innovative technologies additionally appears to be a means of bringing new players to the forefront, who will bring a fresh perspective to opera and its forms of dissemination. Salomé Chatriot speaks of innovative ways to explore the staging of opera: “For my Opera Fragile Ecosystem, I would like to work on breathing through a new protocol by creating a bridge from other performer’s breath into my own body. Firstly, I would record the performers’ breath and lung capacity and encapsulate afterwards into new sensors/sculptures that would react according to their level of difficulty towards breath. On stage, I will be playing their breaths with these new portals and dissolve into their humanity. Physically alone, my body will become an instrument of their biological diffusion and embodiment in the performative space.”

Without claiming to reinvent opera, Hamed Sinno, a Lebanese singer and composer of the alternative rock band Mashrou’Leila, addresses several questions in this regard: “If one of the most common ways of making distinctions between opera and musical theatre is the primacy of the voice, what happens if you write an opera that centers the voice as a narrative character, rather than a medium through which to narrate? In other words, what if the story itself is about the voice as the vestige of subjectivity, and as a site of political negotiation? Does that allow us to question the relationship of the voice to particular traditions of regulating the voice?  What happens if we involve non-singing vocalization? How far can we push recitative singing before it just becomes speaking, and can we just speak and appreciate the musicality of the spoken word? What about tongue pops, lip smacks, growls, or sighs?  What happens when the person asking these questions is not someone who is trained to write or even perform opera? What happens when we introduce singing traditions from communities that are not typically represented as narrative agents in the world of western opera? Does that say anything about the unspoken racial divide underpinning the histories of opera?

Indeed, for operas, this question of new actors also involves the question of representation. Democratizing this art form through the use of new technologies, also means democratizing the actors and discourses put forward in the industry. In this way, Beth Morrison places particular emphasis on the minorities puts at the heart of her Beth Morrison Projects, one of the foremost creators and producers of new opera-theatre and music theater: “Democratizing the art form means allowing EVERYONE, in- including historically marginalized voices in the industry.  BMP has had this as part of our mission for the last 18 years, with more than 70% of our programming going to women and BIPOC composers”.

Hamed Sinno also notes this lack of representation and the elitist image that opera continues to project: “Most people to whom I’ve spoken, including musicians, continue to see the Opera as a gated community for elites, who maintain the cultural sovereignty of a western canon deeply imbricated with various histories of inequality.” In this sense, the latter strives to put forward a less traditional narrative through his new opera Westerly Breath, presented at the Temple of Dendur.

The author draws on the myth of Osiris, central to Egyptian burial practices, as well as elements of their lives as musicians and lawyers, turning the majestic temple into a metaphor for migration and immigration, and ruminating on their own journey of reconstruction as Americans. Although this artistic openness has not yet penetrated to all opera houses, it has found a home in smaller structures. Ben Kutner explains: “Opera is experiencing a renaissance. In recent years, there has been an explosion of smaller, independent opera companies who have expanded the ways that we present and experience opera. These groups act as proof of concept for larger opera institutions to take on riskier, more adventurous work, and they create a platform to explore the relevance of opera in the 21st century.”

Widespread use of these artistic forms and open narratives remain a major challenge, but one that traditional institutions seem increasingly ready to take up. For example, the Paris Opera will soon be hosting a VR experience, enabling participants to enjoy a tailor-made dance experience at the Paris Opera. Similarly, in Miami, the Faena Forum and Temple Emanu-El will host the Immersive Symphony Experience, combining musical performances and 360-degree visual animations.

Rather than an insurmountable challenge, this renewal should be seen as a reflection of the future of opera. To conclude, according to Ben Kutner, “it means that the potential for creating new audiences is at an all-time high. Our role is to figure out how to bring these audiences to the table. It has to start with great music, great stories, and organizations willing to reimagine themselves.”