Media Artist and Associate Professor of Cinematic Arts
Scene from the opera
The Jew of Malta
Opera with interactive media stage and costume, 2002

The Jew of Malta is an opera by André Werner, based on a libretto by Christopher Marlowe. The performance features an interactive stage set and computer generated costumes that are projected onto the stage and the actors. In a contemporary interpretation of the libretto the scene is set in a virtual architecture that reacts to gestures of the actors and reconfigures accordingly. The mechanism highlights the play of control and power that develops around Machiavelli, the central character of the opera. Like the stageset also the costumes are projected onto the actors. The costumes are dynamic image-sequences representing the changing alliances between the different actors and the inner conflicts and mood changes of the characters.

The project was commissioned by the Munich Opera Biennial and premiered at this occasion in 2002. The development of the spatial tracking software, emergent architecture and the overall production design was realized by the Extended Stage Group

 
Nils Krüger: Project Manager
Concept and production design: Nils Krüger, Bernd Lintermann, Joachim Sauter, Jan A. Schroeder, André Werner
André Berndhardt: Development of the costume projections
Bernd Lintermann: Development of the virtual architecture
Axel Schmidt: Developement Trackingsystem Machiavelli
Andreas Kratky: Texture Design for architecture and costumes