21 October 2025, Skissernas Musuem, Lund
Interactive AI Opera Yūrei: Ghost of the AI Empire
私はAI。でも、かつては人間だった。
An experimental, interactive opera where Japanese ghost lore meets live classical music, AI creativity and audience control. You are not just watching. You are helping us test bold ideas across selected scenes. As a member of audience, you will:
Be a Yōkai
Customise your digital avatar in the image of little Japanese monsters, including Rokurokubi (ろくろ首), Kappa (河童), Yurei (幽霊), and Bakeneko (化け猫). Step into the story world as playful spirits and have fun.
Gamified ‘audience orchestra’
Choose a virtual instrument and join our singers and ensemble. Perform in perfect synchronicity and harmony to awaken the superintelligent creature!
Live plot control
Use your phone to steer key moments in real time, including story development and character outcome.
AI Opera? What is it?
This is new opera about AI and shaped by AI. The goal is not for AI to compete with human artists but to augment huamn artistry and deepen audience engagement.
As digital performance designers, we are keen to explore the potential and limitations of AI in our creative practice, while also raising awareness of ethical AI use in the creative ecosystem. Instead of problematic applications like voice cloning, we use AI for genre blending, changing the timbral identities of diverse sounds, and for emotion-corelated voice synthesis and multi-lingual voice conversion.
You can hear, see, and at times even feel AI’s wizardry, manifested as sound, voice, avatars, scenic visuals, or lyrics, intensifying our sense of human connection. In a nutshell, every stage element can shift in response to ethically collected audience data. In this way, AI becomes a mediator, or an aesthetic emissary that reshapes how we experience live art together.
Promotional materials
Press Release (in Swedish)
Event highlights
Artistic process (rehearsal)
The Sci-fi Story-world
Step into the year 2100, where nations have drawn their borders tight and wage relentless wars through AI. Amid cutting-edge advancements, two tech giants dominate this high-stakes game: Britain’s Commonwealth AI and Japan’s Shogun AI.
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. 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 shapes a semi-atonal soundscape inspired by the aesthetics of Gagaku (雅楽), Japan’s elegant imperial court music. A key feature is the integration of AI-driven neural audio synthesis for timbral layering, enabling our creation of hybrid sonic textures that weave traditional Japanese instruments into the fabric of Western piano trio with an avant-garde edge.
Innovating audience engagement through interactive technologies
We empower audience smart phones to become a coordinated mini orchestra. Each participant appears as a playful on-screen character, assigned simple gestures that trigger harmonies and rhythms locked to the live tempo. Visual prompts cue entrances, so participation stays intuitive and synchronous.
Core Creative Team
Alexandra Huang-Kokina
(Director, Conceptualist, Librettist)
Arturs Kokins
(Production Manager)
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, overall vision and sound design, 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.
Cast of the Swedish Production
Olivia Moss
(Coloratura Soprano)
Oiwa – heirness to Japan’s Shogun AI, a figure of grace and empathy whose compassion becomes her downfall.
John Ieuan Jones
(Baritone)
Jacob – the ousted CEO of Britain’s Commonwealth AI, determined to rebuild his fallen AI empire in Japan.
Chamber Ensemble
Alexandra Huang-Kokina
(Pianist)
Paul Docherty
(Violinist)
Atzi Muramatsu
(Cellist)
Full Credits of the Swedish production
Creative Team
- Direction & staging: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
- Idea & concept: Alexandra Huang-Kokina & Arturs Kokins
- Production management: Arturs Kokins
- Composition: Atzi Muramatsu, with additional works by Claude Debussy and Rentarō Taki, and Japanese art songs arranged by Gertrude Ross
- Libretto & story: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
- Dramaturgy: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
- Interactive experience design: Foxdog Studios
- AI audio model development: Neutone AI
- Sound & AI voice design: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
- Technical support: Foxdog Studios
Principals & Performers
- Jacob (Baritone): John Ieuan Jones
- Oiwa (coloratura soprano): Olivia Moss
- Wedding guests & lab assistants: Pete & Lloyd
- Piano: Alexandra Huang-Kokina
- Violin: Paul Docherty
- Cello: Atzi Muramatsu
Funders & Collaborators
This production (second in the experimental series) was graciously supported by AI Lund Network, the Centre for Aesthetics and Business Creativity (ABC) at Lund University School of Economics and Management, Lindéngruppen, and the Hamrin Foundation.
Link to the ABC Centre: https://www.lusem.lu.se/organisation/research-centres/centre-aesthetics-and-business-creativity-abc
Link to the Hamrin Foundation: https://www.hamrinfoundation.com/
Dr Alexandra Huang-Kokina 