Yūrei: Ghost of the AI Empire | Immersive Opera with Live Audience Interaction (Lund 2025)

An experimental, interactive opera where Japanese ghost lore meets live classical music, AI creativity and audience control.

This is an abridged recording of the Swedish premiere of Yūrei: Ghost of the AI Empire, filmed live at Skissernas Museum, Lund (21 October 2025).

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 human 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.

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?