The Opera Machine

Described as the ultimate VIP pass, giving the viewer the ability to go above and below as well as backstage, Royal Opera at Covent Garden is announcing a new interactive experience which allows the viewer to see parts of the 'opera machine' which are normally hidden from audiences, in a seventeen camera spectacular.

Stage crew, technicians and stage managers are normally invisible to the audience, but Royal Opera's new project, The Opera Machine, offers a multi-angle view of everything involved in Act III of Wagner's Die Walküre, including a flaming helix, trap doors and a two-ton spinning wall.

It's also possible to experience a tense moment just over an hour into the recording, when the stage manager and his colleagues fix a flaming prop, delivering it just a few seconds before Bryn Terfel, singing Wotan, walks onto the stage, and also the fixing of a headphone problem during the performance.

You can decide how you experience over an hour and twenty minutes of drama, switching between any of the cameras at will, watching the director's cut which features footage from each of the seventeen cameras, or watching a grid of all the cameras at once. You can also listen to just the music, or overlay it with backstage radio or commentary.

Information: www.roh.org.uk/opera-machine

Posted: 9 July 2014

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