RNCM Research Forum: Opera in Extended Reality

Speakers Toby Young Professor of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama About This talk explores the interaction between operatic form and XR storytelling, investigating how opera?s heightened affect and sustained emotions can function as a dramaturgical resource for immersive media, and proposing that opera?s ?slow storytelling? (Taylor 2016) can counter prevailing tendencies toward fragmentation in digital environments. As a central case study, the paper discusses LuciaVR: a virtual reality reimagining of the ?mad scene? from Donizetti?s Lucia di Lammermoor. LuciaVR situates the audience within Lucia?s psyche, using spatialised sound to collapse distinctions between environment and interior voice, shifting the operatic voice from its conventional position of mediated distance to one of intimacy. The experience focuses viewers on psychological interiority rather than external spectacle, producing a first-person encounter with Lucia?s breakdown articulated through a fractured sonic architecture. The paper positions this strategy as a feminist and phenomenological intervention, and engages theories of attunement (Ahmed 2006), attentional economy (Citton 2017), immersive dramaturgy (Machon 2013), and acousmatic listening (Chion 1994). ? Tickets Free admission, no ticket required Promoted by RNCM. This event will end at approximately 5.30pm. FREE Wednesday 2 December 2026, 4.15pm