State Opera Stuttgart — “Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung”

In a virtual opera piece by the Stuttgart State Opera, visitors explore a surreal end-of-time scenario.

Introduction

Robert Schumann’s scenes from Goethe´s Faust and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar could not be staged as planned at the Staatsoper Stuttgart. The team around director Marco Štorman and conductor André de Ridder were looking for a digital solution for their vision – and came across the Moby Digg Design Team.

Approach

Seven real-life filmed scenarios in deliberately artificial studio settings dramatically stage the actors in scenes where Goethe’s Faust interweaves with the Passion story. The Moby Digg design team contrasts these scenes with a vast, alien landscape.

Outcome

The visitors become part of a post-apocalyptic world. The ruins of the State Opera are recognizable, as are some half-destroyed monuments and landmarks of Stuttgart, but no people in sight – only strange rock formations, red sand, green mist, giant mushrooms and flowering meadows. The journey of exploration from a first-person perspective leads to seven different devotional images – oversized screens in the midst of the surreal landscape. The journey leads from emotional depths to a real abyss. How far the visitors decide to go is up to them.

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