How Do Interactive Virtual Operas Shift Relationships

In this paper we present the new genre of interactive operas implemented on personal computers. They differ from traditional ones not only because they are virtual, but mainly because they offer to composers and listeners new perspectives of combinations and interactions between music, text and visual aspects. 1 What Are Virtual Operas ? We define as a virtual interactive opera any opera implemented on a personal computer, enabling some interactivity with its audience. This new genre is not based on the simple transposition of existing operas in the framework of new computing technologies; it takes into account the shiftings of uses and meanings induced by multimedia computing, assuming they could arouse new writings and ways of creativity [Bonardi 1998b]. Interactivity is based on free choices among different paths. Only open forms that have specially been designed for listeners can enable it. This specification leads us to give up the classical narrative "aristotelician" mode. This implies two possibilities of formal and temporal articulation : • either consider the hypertext model and possibilities of automatic text generation [Balpe & al. 1996] to design an opera where hypermedia components strongly depend on text; this is the case in Jean-Pierre Balpe's Barbe-Bleue project, • or take into account the specificities of computer-aided writing to design a new kind of "musical action" as Luciano Berio [Berio & Eco 1994] defined it : "Between a musical action and an opera, there are substantial differences. Opera is based on a 'aristotelician-like' narrative mode, which tends to have priority on musical development. On the contrary, in a musical action, the musical process rules the story". We have chosen this very direction for our research and our Virtualis project. In this interactive opera, the listener wanders in an open space, being essentially guided by metaphors of music rather than combinations of narratives. ha l-0 04 42 80 1, v er si on 1 22 D ec 2 00 9 Author manuscript, published in "Language, vision and music, John Benjamins Publishing Company (Ed.) (2002) 285-294"