Opera is "brought to life" by virtual images, replacing traditional sets with a newly "immersive theatrical experience" - or so we are told. Here's your chance to decide: it's on your screen or in your theatre - now. So how significantly has it changed opera productions and how will it affect our opera viewing?
A quick trip to Brisbane right now would offer you Opera Australia's 2018 production of Aida (above) and its much delayed, now 2023 Ring Cycle. Years apart, they share in the company's massive investment in virtual technology and technologists, displayed on the same 10 towering LED screens.
If you prefer to stay in Melbourne, Opera Australia has a preChristmas treat. The current Queensland production of Aida, playing between Ring operas, is screening live on YouTube till Christmas Day. Just click here for the link to play the opera, and details about the production and the synopsis. (The stream lasts 3 hours & 20 minutes. You can skip ads and a long introductory chat by the revival director, and soprano Jane Ede by starting the video at 33 minutes!)
'Ten towering LED screens create an immersive theatrical experience, as ever-changing floor-to-ceiling set pieces present video design that ranges from rich symbolism to vivid landscapes.' 'LED screens bring Opera Australia’s Aida to life.' Details of the screens and technology are here.
'The production uses 10 large LED screens which can move and rotate around the stage. Onto these are screened a range of dynamic, pristine images such as slithering gold snakes, a horseman riding through the desert, a red stormy sky, ancient male gods in nothing but gold G-strings, and patterned hieroglyphics.' That Limelight review was typical of the superlatives greeting the digital imagery that backed the 2018 production. Overwhelmingly they praised the initiative and the imagery, but they were less unanimous about what it did to Verdi's original masterpiece.
Watched it? And do you dread the digital future or delight in it? Here's some links to, and detail from reviews (of the Melbourne, Sydney or current Queensland production) to pursue if you are interested.
Man in the Chair offers a detailed review that managed largely to ignore the digital show. 'While [director] Livermore’s stage direction of Aida is dominated by the significant space occupied by the ever-moving panels, his strong character work successfully burrows to the human heart of the opera.'
OperaWire focussed on the digital and overall was greatly impressed.
The Arts Review (on the subsequent Sydney production) was guarded: 'The company’s new Aida is a curious, sometimes seductive, at times distracting concoction of LED imagery, costuming and direction and much more could have been achieved with the story’s love triangle. The audience took it without raucous applause and wasn’t on their feet either.'
So too was Theatre Thoughts review: 'Their visual impact is so remarkable that one runs the risk of gushing over the digital design and forgetting about the rest of the performance.' But the conclusion? "The exceptional performances and breathtaking visuals ensure an unforgettable evening at the opera."
The Arts Hub review, on the other hand, confronted what is surely the greatest risk of digital imagery, its overuse.
"This is quite literally a dazzling production built on impressive, and undoubtedly very expensive, technology. All the traditional staging and sets have been replaced with towering digital screens ... creating new shapes and spaces.
"They fill the stage with images and video of hieroglyphics, slithering golden serpents, galloping horsemen, swirling red tempests, a prowling black panther and more. Idealised bodies, male and female, tower above the stage in nearly-nude grandeur.
"This is all undeniably impressive, but it does unfortunately rather overwhelm what’s actually happening on the stage. The screens and imagery are so big and bold that they get in the way of the storytelling just as much as they enhance it. The emotional impact and heart-breaking tragedy just gets a bit lost amid all the whizz-bangery. And the reality is that we are now all so utterly immersed in screen culture, often surrounded by LED advertising screens that cover entire city buildings, that this is less of a ‘wow’ factor than it would have been only a few short years ago.
"So for me, and I think quite a few people in the audience on opening night, the cumulative effect was one of distraction rather than engagement. A little would have been a good thing but too much is … well, just too much.
"Aida is a spectacle in its own right with all the mythology and magic that imbues our love of Ancient Egypt and the greatness of the pharaohs. It is also a tragic tale of love and betrayal, of patriotism and duty, and of sacrifice and revenge. All of this great human drama is told through Verdi’s wonderful music."
And finally, here's a very detailed account of the complex mix of images and their effect on the production in JWire.
"Perhaps the biggest problem of the panels for me is that, as deployed in this production, they are incapable of subtlety. Everything is over-the-top, brash, garish and exaggerated. And whilst that may suit the large scenes of pomp and celebration such as the Triumphal March, it does not suit, at all, the intimate scenes of personal interaction, which are at the opera’s core and make up much more of the music and drama.
"The panels came closest to working in the Nile Scene in Act III but even there they were too much and soon spoilt by (unnecessary) lightning flashes.
"Perhaps the worst perpetrator of this unsubtlety was the giant black panther which appeared whenever Amneris was on the prowl (get it?).
"This was sledgehammer-like in its subtlety, unnecessary and entirely off-putting. Other items, too, were overwhelming and unnecessary (giant nudes added nothing to the story or the drama and several of the images did not correspond with who we were seeing doing the singing). The most effective use of the panels for me was the switch to the rolling red clouds during Aïda’s first aria ... although this too, was soon overdone. The lack of subtlety in their surroundings may also have had an influence on the singing – sometimes the singing had to almost compete to be seen and heard amidst the giant panels. "
"These video panels are strikingly colourful and imposing in both size and versatility, but with the novelty effect waning, they feel less impressive now than five years ago. For one thing, they reduce the dramatic effect of the opera by offering a simplified version of what Richard Wagner had achieved with his complex Leitmotif system. When Amneris is alone on stage, by way of example, a giant, black panther blinks and nods behind her, the comparison to her ruthless nature all too obvious (although, according to Verdi’s brilliant opera, this is not quite so simple). An even greater problem with this production is that apart from the video images – and after a while, the threatening volcanic clouds projected there become all too familiar – there is little else happening."
Lots to debate here. For starters, are the problems identified due to the use of digital imagery, or to the dramatic and often confusing content and presentation of images?
Five years on: A digital "space-age" Pacific Ring Cycle
But wait till you see what is on those same towering screens in Brisbane for Wagner's Ring Cycle operas, currently playing. And how the use of digital has changed since 2018, driven by a Chinese director.
It's a massively expensive and cumbersome project still. Take in this summary: "With 27 semi-trailer loads of technical equipment, costumes, stage pieces and props all transported from Sydney, 14 tonnes of LED screens, a 45 hours of performance, and more than 350 cast, musicians and support crew required to stage all four operas, OA’s Ring Cycle is the biggest operatic event happening in Australia right now, and quite possibly the world."
At least it doesn't require livestock transfer: the valkyries ride phoenix, not horses.
But this digital approach is both more adventurous and more subtle than the digital Aida.
Bachtrack talked with the director, Chen Shi-Zheng , back in October, about his very different use of those towering screens. “Digital is hard,” laughs Chen. “You know those LED backdrop panels? You turn them on and they are so bright! Even when you use a normal computer, you only use a small percentage of the brightness. I realised nobody wanted to be facing this huge bright thing for four hours – you’d need to give the audience sunglasses. So we darkened the LED panels and used a lot of negative space. It reminded me of classical Chinese paintings, where ninety percent of the space is vacant and the remaining ten percent is the feature. Like you’d paint just one fish in this huge ocean.”
Colossal expanses of dark space are not only comfortable on the eyes, but also fitting with Chen’s vision for a vast, space-age Ring cycle of epic proportions. “The storming, the cycles of nature, the weather pattern... And not just earthly nature, but the galaxies, the universe. Because this opera reflects how gods, humans – how all creatures – move, how they come to us, and how we go to them.”
The OA trailer gives a better feel than still images do - especially for the ways the imagery is tied to the drama and moves with the music. Fascinated? Listen to the technical director discussing it remarkably calmly during the test build in Sydney!
Each opera has its own imagery story, and Chen assigned a season to each, the final opera freezing the world in ice. You can follow those through the reviews. The Rhinemidens swim in a coral sea, ("almost as Arthur Rackam would have drawn it, one reviewer remarks.) More here about the technology and its uses, including motion-tracking, so that the performers can interact spontaneously with animations.
“They’ll really be able to dance as if they were fish,” enthuses Sachwitz, “because the way that this tracking works is that it synchronizes with their physical movements. They’re tracked using beacons on their costumes, and the motion sensors will pick up their movement. If they lift their hand towards the screen, a swarm of digital fish will appear. It makes everything totally dance together – the music, the singing, the imagery, the lighting. Because it’s all reacting together using technology, it’s not being cued in that kind of traditional way.”
Enough to get you wishing you were there? It was of course a mixed success, but the criticisms were not those meeting Aida. Here are the Bachtrack reviews (by its founder, David Larkin) for Rheingold, then Die Walküre. With Seigfried, Larkin argued the approach had changed. "There is little sign of any Asian cultural influences in Siegfried: no Chinese lions or gigantic bonsai tree. Even the much-vaunted virtual screens are here used with restraint: the first scene takes place with only two coloured panels acting as walls for Mime’s forge while the rest of the stage is plunged in darkness. When the occasion calls for it in Siegfried’s forging song, digital sparks do fly, shooting around projections of a giant sword. This scene is notable also for the brief appearance of acrobatic dancers with ribbons, whom one could choose to imagine as Loge’s minions, personifications of fire itself. " And yes, Götterdämmerung was seen as a triumph for the production.
Lyn, 17/12/23