Surrounded by 850 square meters of screens, which were illuminated by 20 large projectors, the visitors at the Linz Brucknerhaus were given a fascinating glimpse of what opera might be like in the future. Richard Wagner’s music – brilliantly interpreted by the Linz Bruckner Orchestra under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies – was translated by an innovative computer system (originally developed by the Ars Electronica Futurelab) into fascinating 3-D forms. The music directly influenced the visuals on the screens. The three-dimensional images were generated autonomously within specific parameters by a computer intelligence which reacted to the strains of the orchestra.

Unlike in a classical opera production, a virtual reality enclosed the audience and enabled an entirely new reception of the work. A world of images, based on designs by Johannes Deutsch, a Viennese artist, was directly linked to a world of sound created in the theater. Via computer, the scenes were coupled with Wagner’s work and reacted to the musicians’ interpretation with dynamic structures embodying the opera’s characters and settings.

Johannes Deutsch and the Ars Electronica Futurelab worked for a year on the realization of this enormous project, which was first performed during the International Bruckner Festival. The Ars Electronica Futurelab specially adapted the “ARSBOX”, one of the lab’s innovations, for “Rheingold”. Over months, a team of specialists “taught” the computer system to “hear” Wagner’s music and to interpret it according to artistic criteria.