by Conan Simmons – September 17, 2020 – 5:08 am
In a retro futuristic world, a wealthy woman is murdered. Three suspects emerge and plead their case. You, the audience, play judge and jury in this exciting new live virtual reality opera.
That’s right, it’s an opera. Performed by real actors every time, ‘Miranda: A Steampunk VR Experience’ has a running time of 30 minutes. From September 24 – 26 there will be three shows each night.
Exploring a dystopian future filled with class disparities and a broken criminal justice system this revolutionary new performance piece is directed by Alison Moritz along with interactive designer Diego Matias. The apocalyptic pop beats mixed with classic opera is scored by Kamala Sankaram and conducted by David Bloom.
Presented by LUMA, Tri-Cities Opera, Opera Omaha and Enhance VR.
The virtual reality experience will be available through the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive as well as desktop or laptop gaming PC’s. A two dimensional directors cut can also be viewed via Youtube.
‘Miranda’ is a steampunk mystery featuring real time interactive narration. Using virtual reality, live motion capture and face tracking, real actors bring to life custom 3D characters.
The format was conceived by LUMA co-founder Joshua Bernard Ludzki. It is the debut of a new software framework for presenting live musicals and opera. It utilizes the industry standard gaming framework Unity with network and synchronization backend by Photon.
The shows are free but registration is recommended to show impact of the event to sponsors. More info can be found here.