AI-assisted staging draws boos at the Richard Wagner festival in Germany

An AI-assisted staging of Wagner's 'Götterdämmerung' at the Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany, drew boos from the audience on Saturday evening, with curator Marcus Lobbes and his team greeted with boos and whistles, though conductor Christian Thielemann received warm applause. The AI-generated projections, which included images of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the World Trade Center towers after 9/11, left some spectators confused, according to German news agency dpa. Festival organizers said it was the first time AI took part on stage at the event, and two more performances are scheduled.

BERLIN AP — An experiment with artificial intelligence at the annual Richard Wagner festival https://apnews.com/article/bayreuth-festival-wagner-ring-cycle-632f318cdddeb8ce031dffa84e60a98c in the southeastern German town of Bayreuth drew boos from the audience after producing a staging that appeared to leave some spectators confused. Curator Marcus Lobbes and his team were greeted with boos and whistles as they took to the stage at the end of Saturday evening's performance of "Götterdämmerung," German news agency dpa reported. However, there was warm applause for the singers and musicians, and particularly for conductor Christian Thielemann. Festival organizers said ahead of the performance that it would be the first time AI took part on stage at the event, "not as a character, but as an image-generating force." They said that singers would be "the fixed point within a visually seething cosmos of light, texture, history, and association, amidst projections that erupt, constantly shift, and merge into one another." The AI-assisted projections included scenes from previous performances of Wagner's "Ring" cycle and historical themes, and drew from images pre-selected by Lobbes, the director of the Academy for Theater and Digitality in Dortmund, and his team. The collage that the technology projected on stage puzzled the audience, dpa reported, with images including former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the towers of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and a special postage stamp marking German reunification in 1990. The festival website said that "every performance will be unique — because the images and associations never stand still." Two more performances are scheduled. The Associated Press