First Opera Out: Yūrei: Ghost of the AI Empire
Step into the future of live art with an immersive opera where AI, human creativity, and Japanese folklore entwine in a haunting tale of love, betrayal, digital twins and digital immortality
私はAI。でも、かつては人間だった。
OperAI is a practice-led artistic and academic research project I lead at the University of Manchester (UK) and Lund University (Sweden). It integrates artificial intelligence into live opera performance through an original opera series that explores how AI can enhance accessibility, deepen audience participation, and augment (rather than replace) human creativity.
Challenging opera’s traditionally elitist and exclusionary conventions, OperAI reimagines the art form as an engine for digital inclusion and innovation. It experiments with two areas rarely addressed in opera today: radical forms of storytelling and new models of audience engagement.
Harnessing the power of AI, data science, and immersive media, OperAI investigates how these technologies can integrate multimodal information and optimise complex emotional processes that shape human communication. In doing so, it prototypes new paradigms of interaction and affective coordination between humans and machines, offering a glimpse into the future of opera and live arts in a digitally connected world.
This project also pioneers the concept of ‘science-fiction opera’, merging traditional operatic techniques with emerging technologies to develop extended performance techniques in visionary realms. Key features include:
Emotional feedback mechanism
Inspired by interactive robotic opera innovations in Scandinavia and Japan, my opera incorporates affective robotics and interactive digital mechanisms to facilitate dynamic emotive exchanges between performers, audiences and non-human agents.
Gamified ‘audience orchestra’
Audience participants use mobile devices as interactive instruments to co-create music with singers and musicians in real time, enriching the performance with audio-musical contributions that amplify their virtual presence.
Audience as nodes in a multimedia network
By likening the opera’s multimedia environment to an AGI neural network, the audience exercises collective agency to influence character outcomes and narrative developments, such as deciding pivotal moral dilemmas (e.g., to avenge or forgive a character).
Pilot Performance – the Swedish premiere (October 2025)
Pilot Performance – the Edinburgh premiere (March 2025)
The Story-world
Step into the year 2100, where nations have drawn their borders tight and wage relentless wars through AI. Amidst cutting-edge advancements, two tech giants dominate this high-stakes game: Commonwealth AI of Britain and Shogun AI of Japan.
While Japan has reinstated its medieval traditions, the ambition of powerful feudal lords entwines with the conspiratorial plots of a former British CEO in exile. As he offers the secret codes of Commonwealth AI, the Sato family—owners of Shogun AI—present an ultimate gift in return: their enigmatic daughter, Oiwa.
As their wedding unfolds, Oiwa does not anticipate the twist of her fate, ultimately transforming into an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). As ominous memories trickle through her hyper-wired mind, should she forgive, or erase, the very creators of her consciousness?
Musical Language
Our music ensemble brings the opera to life with innovative interpretations, shaping a semi-atonal soundscape inspired by the aesthetics of Gagaku (雅楽), Japan’s elegant imperial court music dating back to the 10th century. Furthermore, using AI-driven neural audio synthesis, we create hybrid sonic expressions through timbral layering, weaving the textures of traditional Japanese instruments into the fabric of a Western piano trio.
Innovating audience engagement through interactive technologies
In collaboration with interactive design studios, we’ll prototype an audience engagement toolkit employing emotion AI, social robotics, and Human-Computer-Interaction techniques to convert real-time audience feedback into stage elements (e.g., lighting, audio). This allows semi-improvised, co-created performances where opera singers react to audience input in gamified group experiences.
Core Creative Team
Alexandra Huang-Kokina
(Director, Conceptualist, Librettist)
Arturs Kokins
(Producer, Co-director)
Atzi Muramatsu
(Composer)
Envisioned by Alexandra, Yūrei’s story-world draws inspiration from the 19th-century Japanese Kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan with a sci-fi opera twist. Alexandra commissioned the BAFTA-winning composer Atzi to compose the music. Alexandra’s libretto and overall vision, alongside Atzi’s music score, forms the opera’s foundation. However, this opera isn’t a rigidly scripted work to be performed verbatim or note-for-note. Instead, it integrates digital interactive interfaces and improvisational opera techniques to innovate audience engagement.
Chamber Ensemble
Alexandra Huang-Kokina
(Pianist)
Paul Docherty
(Violinist)
Robin Mason
(Cellist)
Cast of the Edinburgh Production
Stephanie Lai
(Lyric Soprano)
Oiwa – a charming second-generation millionaire and the female heir to Japan’s Shogun AI.
Colin Murray
(Baritone)
Jacob – the ousted CEO of Britain’s Commonwealth AI, determined to rebuild his fallen AI empire in Japan.
Lynn Bellamy
(Mezzo Soprano)
Ohana – the sharp, calculating & ambitious self-made entrepreneur, driven by intelligence and jealousy.
Stephanie Lamprea
(Soprano)
Narrator – the omniscient goddess bridging our imaginative gaps in this AI world.
Full Credits of the Edinburgh production
Creative Team
- Vision & Storyworld Creator: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
- Director: Alexandra Huang-Kokina and Arturs Kokins
- Composer: Atzi Muramatsu
- Librettist: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
- Dramaturg: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
Principals & Performers
- Conductor: Atzi Muramatsu
- Jacob (Baritone): Colin Murray
- Oiwa (Lyrical Soprano): Stephanie Lai
- Ohana (Mezzo-Soprano): Lynn Bellamy
- Narrator (Spoken or sung role): Stephanie Lamprea
- Piano: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
- Violin: Paul Docherty
- Cello: Robin Mason
Production Team
- Producer: Operactive Arts
- Production Manager: Arturs Kokins
- Technical Director: Arturs Kokins
- Audience Interaction Technologists: Ray Interactive
- Digital Projection Designer: Jiarong Yu
- Videographer: Paul Maguire
- Sound Engineer: David Waugh
Funders & Collaborators
The pilot performance was part of the Digital Innovations for Vocal Music conference at Edinburgh Futures Institute and was graciously supported by the Centre for Data, Culture and Society (CDCS) at Edinburgh Futures Institute, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh, the Centre for Aesthetics and Business Creativity (ABC) at Lund University, the Music & Letters Trust (Oxford Academic), and the Royal Musical Association.
Review of the Edinburgh production
“An interesting and entertaining performance … a sign of the forward momentum of technology and its place in the arts …. AI Kaidan (Yūrei) may be the beginning of a new operatic form.”
“With what has been presented by Operactive Arts, it’s clear that some of the hands in which this vast, morally and applicatory diverse technology rests are putting it to meritorious use …. The melding of the ancient and the futuristic … has always been the best way to explore and understand the human condition.” (British Theatre Guide)
Dr Alexandra Huang-Kokina 