**Abstract**

Opera as an art form should lend itself to participatory design, given its wide variety of theatrical and musical components. Opera, however, imposes its own constraints and challenges. The problem as laid out in the early stages of the project was to design a short one-act interactive opera that could be managed within a modest budget. The source material was a science fiction manuscript currently undergoing publication by a small independent publishing house. Our research and production team included a composer, several singers/musicians, an engineer, a designer, and a choreographer/dancer as well as the writer. Furthermore, several of these had done extensive work with interactive and immersive environments. In addition to the opera itself, which incorporated both live and virtual elements, we recycled the 3d virtual designs as the substratum for an online co-creation environment that could be used to elicit public participation in the future development of our operas. We discuss both the diverse challenges involved in creating the opera and the co-creation environment, and highlight projected future work.

**Keywords:** opera, virtual staging, augmented virtuality, augmented reality, participatory design, choreography, libretto, scenario, 3d design, musical composition, animation, interaction, interactivity, avatars

#### **1. Introduction**

At its beginnings, dramatic art as practiced, for example, by the ancient Greeks [1], was understood to be a participatory activity. Audiences were coached and guided to participate in the chorus [2], audience members were often invited to act out a part, and the cathartic effects of drama were designed to be used as a form of social engagement [3]. Over the centuries, especially in the period leading into the Enlightenment, audiences became more passive and a separate class of professional performers emerged who were tasked with ensuring that formal performance esthetics were achieved [4], especially in music [5], although there were also contrary tendencies [6]. Today, although this remains the de facto modus operandi of most public performances, there is a growing demand on the part of a broader public to be re-integrated into the dramatic production process. The lines between professional and audience productions are blurring again. Hence video and audio recordings are "remixed" by adventurous user communities, and "mashups" that

combine elements from several sources are also created and disseminated [7]. Fan fiction has become a huge industry, with countless individuals writing their own versions of popular stories, whether these remain purely literature or have been transposed from film or television series, or even stories confined to the gaming universes [8]. Ways are being found to integrate audience productions within live drama presentations, for example by integrating live camera footage of audiences into stage productions [9].

It has been noted that opera as an art form should lend itself to participatory design [10] given its wide variety of theatrical and musical components, but efforts to do so are still relatively limited. Furthermore, if one were to succeed in making opera more participatory, then this success should spill over into other performance arts where the modes of representation are more constrained. Participatory design in a broader sense has been, of course, an established practice now in research circles for several decades, addressing problem-solving in relation to a wide variety of application domains [11, 12]. Furthermore, participatory design is increasingly being used within art production practices [13–15], including the design of television episodes. Opera, however, imposes its own constraints and challenges. In our context, we had neither the budget of a television studio nor that of a major production house—instead, we had a small seed budget from the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for developing the opera (the Insight Development program). How, then, to not only design a participatory opera, but also to develop a collaboration protocol that would support the design process?

As a team, we had not all worked together before, which posed its own challenges. However, some of us (particularly Edwards and Bourbeau [16]) had extensive experience working with multidisciplinary teams. Several members of our team were also highly polyvalent, that is, masters of more than one discipline (see **Table 1** which shows the different forms of expertise).

The opera project formed a natural and organic extension to the creative work of the original author and librettist for the project, Edwards [17]. His writing activity sprang out of a lifelong interest towards improving the lives of other humans that has also underlain his career as a research scientist. The themes his writing addresses bear witness to this interest—his work raises issues of tolerance and its relationship to conformity and peer pressure, gender fluidity issues, bullying and violence, disability and mental health among other thematic areas. The engagement of a broader public within his creative work is one manifestation of this abiding interest, and one that he finds particularly compelling, in that it opens the possibility to carry the writing out "into the world" in ways that are not usually accessible to writers.

#### **2. The challenge**

The problem as laid out in the early stages of the project was to design a short (20–30 min) one-act interactive opera that could be managed within our modest budget. The source material was a science fiction manuscript that Edwards wrote in 2012, which was itself the first volume of a fifteen volume opus which is now undergoing publication [17]. We had on board for the project (see **Table 1**), a composer (Lacasse), several singers/musicians (Kiss, Stévance, Bourbeau, Falcon), an engineer (Falcon), a designer (Morales), and a choreographer and dancer (McLaren) as well as the writer (Edwards). Furthermore, we had several people who had done extensive work with interactive and immersive environments (Kiss, Edwards, Bourbeau and Falcon primarily).

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**Table 1.**

*The production team.*

*Designing a Participatory and Interactive Opera DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.82811*

• Find an appropriate scenario.

choreography, and lyrics).

publics.

process.

Hence, there were several tasks to be addressed:

• Determine how the story should be interactive (e.g., what mix of augmented and virtual reality should be incorporated? How should individual interactions

be engendered, and how should group interactions be facilitated? etc.).

• Embellish the scenario with the other components (stage design, music,

• Bring the elements together into a performance for presentation to diverse

**Figure 1** shows an example of how we viewed this taking place. Some of the details of the flow are subject to discussion, but, overall, this was our planned

What is important about this conception of the process, is that although there were areas where understanding was lacking, the plan followed a kind of general procedure for developing performance-based productions. The diagram also incorporates a number of assumptions: that a scenario needed to come first, and that following the scenario, the libretto and the music had to come next. In our case, the libretto was viewed as preceding the music because the two steps had to be carried out by different individuals (when carried out by the same individual, historical evidence suggests the process is much more iterative, with a constant back and forward shift of attention between music and libretto [18]). Furthermore,

Geoffrey Edwards Senior researcher Writer (librettist, virtual reality, augmented reality, smart

design)

communications

Rehabilitation, nursing

Avatar design, 3D design

and studio recordings

Jocelyne Kiss Researcher in music Virtual reality, singer (soprano), non-verbal

Serge Lacass Composer, singer Network communications applications

Singer, coach Immersive installations

André Dorval Sound engineer Experience with film, stage and TV production, concerts

garments, geomatics, motion capture, fashion/costume

Virtual and augmented reality, animation, voice

**Team member Basic expertise Complementary expertise**

Ernesto Morales Architect, designer Rehabilitation, co-design

Cora McLaren Choreographer,

Juan Nino Falcon Student,

Marie Louise Bourbeau

Jonathan Proulx Guimond

dancer

Sophie Stévance Singer, theorist Critical theory

mechatronics

Student, visual design

Antoine Guérette Student, architecture 3D design Alicia Lamontagne Student, architecture 3D design *Interactive Multimedia - Multimedia Production and Digital Storytelling*

into stage productions [9].

support the design process?

which shows the different forms of expertise).

Edwards, Bourbeau and Falcon primarily).

combine elements from several sources are also created and disseminated [7]. Fan fiction has become a huge industry, with countless individuals writing their own versions of popular stories, whether these remain purely literature or have been transposed from film or television series, or even stories confined to the gaming universes [8]. Ways are being found to integrate audience productions within live drama presentations, for example by integrating live camera footage of audiences

It has been noted that opera as an art form should lend itself to participatory design [10] given its wide variety of theatrical and musical components, but efforts to do so are still relatively limited. Furthermore, if one were to succeed in making opera more participatory, then this success should spill over into other performance arts where the modes of representation are more constrained. Participatory design in a broader sense has been, of course, an established practice now in research circles for several decades, addressing problem-solving in relation to a wide variety of application domains [11, 12]. Furthermore, participatory design is increasingly being used within art production practices [13–15], including the design of television episodes. Opera, however, imposes its own constraints and challenges. In our context, we had neither the budget of a television studio nor that of a major production house—instead, we had a small seed budget from the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for developing the opera (the Insight Development program). How, then, to not only design a participatory opera, but also to develop a collaboration protocol that would

As a team, we had not all worked together before, which posed its own challenges. However, some of us (particularly Edwards and Bourbeau [16]) had extensive experience working with multidisciplinary teams. Several members of our team were also highly polyvalent, that is, masters of more than one discipline (see **Table 1**

The opera project formed a natural and organic extension to the creative work of the original author and librettist for the project, Edwards [17]. His writing activity sprang out of a lifelong interest towards improving the lives of other humans that has also underlain his career as a research scientist. The themes his writing addresses bear witness to this interest—his work raises issues of tolerance and its relationship to conformity and peer pressure, gender fluidity issues, bullying and violence, disability and mental health among other thematic areas. The engagement of a broader public within his creative work is one manifestation of this abiding interest, and one that he finds particularly compelling, in that it opens the possibility to carry the writing out "into the world" in ways that are not usually accessible to

The problem as laid out in the early stages of the project was to design a short (20–30 min) one-act interactive opera that could be managed within our modest budget. The source material was a science fiction manuscript that Edwards wrote in 2012, which was itself the first volume of a fifteen volume opus which is now undergoing publication [17]. We had on board for the project (see **Table 1**), a composer (Lacasse), several singers/musicians (Kiss, Stévance, Bourbeau, Falcon), an engineer (Falcon), a designer (Morales), and a choreographer and dancer (McLaren) as well as the writer (Edwards). Furthermore, we had several people who had done extensive work with interactive and immersive environments (Kiss,

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writers.

**2. The challenge**

Hence, there were several tasks to be addressed:


**Figure 1** shows an example of how we viewed this taking place. Some of the details of the flow are subject to discussion, but, overall, this was our planned process.

What is important about this conception of the process, is that although there were areas where understanding was lacking, the plan followed a kind of general procedure for developing performance-based productions. The diagram also incorporates a number of assumptions: that a scenario needed to come first, and that following the scenario, the libretto and the music had to come next. In our case, the libretto was viewed as preceding the music because the two steps had to be carried out by different individuals (when carried out by the same individual, historical evidence suggests the process is much more iterative, with a constant back and forward shift of attention between music and libretto [18]). Furthermore,


**Table 1.** *The production team.*

#### **Figure 1.** *Original concept of the design process.*

within our original discussions about interactivity, the presence of augmented or virtual reality avatars was implicitly assumed, although exactly how these would be integrated was unclear. The diagram incorporates these assumptions.

We also viewed the process as having an addendum—in parallel to, or following, the development of the opera, we would develop an online environment for co-creation, but in our original conception, these tasks were viewed as separate. In the next section, we shall see how the design and production process actually occurred and what the differences between plan and realization taught us about these processes.
