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Music

The World's First Opera For The iPad [Free Download]

Sure, it’s kind of just like an interactive music video, but we applaud the effort to bring opera into the 21st century.

EXILE is a new iPad app that purports to be the “world’s first opera for the iPad.” The app, which essentially amounts to an interactive music video environment, comes from Aphids and Chamber Made Opera, with generative visuals developed by cult digital artists Champagne Valentine and music by Helen Gifford. The chamber opera was recorded in front of a live audience and chronicles the story of high priestess Iphigenia, a figure from Greek mythology who is forced into exile after being sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon.

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Setting aside the hyped up claim of “world’s first iPad opera,” the project is an interesting experiment at lending interactivity to a typically passive musical experience. Users are able to “navigate the psychological state of high priestess Iphigenia” through the interactive drawing feature developed by Champagne Valentine, which yields dark, textured voodoo motifs of blood and bones as you are serenaded by haunting operatic reflections on Iphigenia's gruesome history conducting human sacrifices. While this probably isn’t the most ground-breaking app we’ve ever seen, it’s certainly an interesting experiment in augmenting the age-old operatic medium with digital technology. And since the app is available for free download for the time being, we don’t really have much cause for complaint.

[via CreativeApplications.net]