Deakin Motion.Lab and Victorian Opera team up for new 3D production

Fish that fly, animals that defy gravity, and unexpected weather will all pop out at the audience thanks to the stunning computer-generated 3D scenography created by programmers and artists from Deakin Motion.Lab - Centre for Creative Arts Research over hundreds of hours of development.

Built using videogame engine Unity, the 3D scenography features multiple different worlds for the stage performers and musicians from the Victorian Opera Youth Opera and Victorian Opera Chamber Orchestra to inhabit and respond to.

Professor Kim Vincs, Director of the Deakin Motion.Lab - Centre for Creative Arts Research and Co-Director of Four Saints in Three Acts with theatre director Nancy Black, said that the surreal work about 16th century Spanish saints by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson presented a wonderful challenge.

“There’s no narrative structure to the opera, it’s a lot of nonsense, so Nancy Black and I put a visual narrative behind the story,” Professor Vincs said.

“From the steps of a Cathedral to a garden party in Barcelona and even heaven itself, there were certainly a lot of settings to play with and create.

“We’ve been inspired by the characters Stein wrote about and have brought some of those surrealist elements to life with the four worlds that we’ve created.”

Four Saints in Three Acts is the second of three operas to be created through a three-year research project funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) between Deakin Motion.Lab and Victorian Opera and follows on from the award-winning production of The Flying Dutchman in 2015.

Professor Vincs explained that this new production builds on the Deakin Motion.Lab team’s experience with The Flying Dutchman.

“Our research group has a lot of experience in movement and technology in a performance context and with this project, in particular, we’re really able to leverage our broad experience and really push what we’re doing.

“We’ve created a huge amount of content, pushed the 3D stereo possibilities in a theatrical context, and brought in much more complex animation and systems for this production.

“There’s an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes development at work from our programmers and technical artists that really underpins what we’re putting on stage.

We’ve drawn on our skills from a number of different areas – from animation to motion capture and dance – to pull this together and we just can’t wait for the audience to experience it.”

Four Saints in Three Acts is on at the Coopers Malthouse Theatre on Friday 30 September and Saturday 1 October.

Media contact: Katie Thompson 0418 839 638