My eight-year-old son and all his friends seem to love a computer game called Minecraft. I try and get them all to spend their time watching and listening to opera and classical music instead. Now, the good students at Virginia Tech University have brought together the gleaming pixels of Minecraft and the glowing music of Mozart to create an opera, OPERAcraft.
Its characters were embedded into the Minecraft mise-en-scène, manipulated by the university and high school students and broadcast into the game itself, as it were. This kind of thing has been tried before, notably with concerts in Second Life, but Minecraft appeals to a much younger crowd (take it from me and any other parents with young kids).
The story is a kind of sci-fi, oppressive regime kind of thing. There's a rather lovely video of the work, where you can also see the musicians performing in front of a big screen as they synch into the game.
One wonders what will be next. How about The Sims: The Opera? Or Lucia di Star Trek Online (given that Star Trek is a space opera anyway, that would be a rather good fit)?
So, do I approve? Yes, I rather think I do.
