In Die Fernweh Oper you will visit a perpetual opera performed by a star in the form of a 50 ft tall opera singer named Asteria, who sings especially for you and about your foolish love for her. Just as with the stars you see at night, she has already died billions of years ago and what you see of her is her last light that reaches your eyes. It wouldn’t be an opera without a tragic story of course.
Die Fernweh Oper consists of three acts. Each act is a space that you can visit without a beginning or an end. Scene 1 will allow you to listen to Asteria sing for you. In scene 2 you will visit Asteria’s abandoned dressing room in which small porcelain statues will sing a chorale for you. In scene 3 you will visit the the custodian whose job it is to replace the stars who have died, among which is Asteria.
Die Fernweh Oper is an interactive experience that is specifically designed for virtual reality and is the 4th addition to the ongoing series ‘The Shoebox Diorama’. Virtual reality has the ability to make the visitor experience new emotions and feelings.
When visiting a stage performance there is this awkward feeling when you accidentally make eye contact with a performer on stage. During this brief and intimate moment the distance between you and the performer completely disappears. Die Fernweh Oper has such a distance as a premisse. The distance between a star and a human, the distance between performer and audience, between real and virtual and the distance between memory and present.
ABOUT Daniel Ernst
‘The Shoebox Diorama’ is a series of interactive illustrations for VR devices by director ‘Daniel Ernst’. In each diorama you will visit a fantastical hand painted environment or meet weird and wonderful characters in which interaction is used to let you experience a story and convey a sense of wonder. Each diorama is a perpetual space with no beginning and no end, which the visitor can explore at his own pace. Daniels critically acclaimed work has been showcased at SXSW, Cinekid, Academy of Arts Berlin and the Frankfurter Buchmesse and many others. His work has won the Other Dimensions Award at the avant garde games festival AMAZE, among others.
Die Fernweh Oper is created by a diverse group of people. The soundscapes of Die Fernweh Oper are recorded by sound artist Armeno Alberts and his collection of original fifties and sixties synths. Die Fernweh Oper features an original soundtrack with a libretto by the renowned Belgian poet Maud Vanhauwaert, put to music by Misha Velthuis (The Netherlands) & Naren Chandavarkar (India) and with a vocal and mocap performance by Swiss Opera Singer Annina Gieré.