Coming Soon: Opera for Google Glass
In the future, will “opera glasses” be slang for Google Glass? For those of you who haven’t been to the opera in the last few decades, most companies include some sort of real-time translation feature: when New York City Opera was at the New York State Theater, they used supertitles, the English-language version broadcast on a thin screen above the stage; at the Metropolitan Opera House, they include a number of language options, viewable on your seat back. But now On Site Opera, which produces site-specific operas (it once put on a Shostakovich piece at the Bronx Zoo), has partnered with Figaro Systems, “developer of groundbreaking libretto simultexting technology,” according to a press release, to send an English language translation straight to your eyeballs.
In June, the companies’ collaboration, a production of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion, will be performed for Google Glass users. “As the performers move about the space during the performance, audience members will be able to read an English translation of Ballot de Sovot’s libretto conveniently in their Glass™ field of vision,” according to the press release. They consider the event an “experiment,” a special event in addition to a handful of regular performances.
The Google performance will be held Thursday, June 19, at Lifestyle-Trimco Mannequin Showroom, on 25th Street near Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. (What is that? Chelsea? Almost?) You can RSVP here. Oh, and you need to bring your own Google Glass. BYOGG.
Follow Henry Stewart on Twitter @henrycstewart
