On August 26, 2020, San Diego Opera will present the winners from last year’s Opera Hack workshop as they show the results of their projects in a live broadcast on the YouTube Page of Opera America.

The workshop came as a partnership with Microsoft and Opera America, where professionals from the theater and tech industries came together to explore innovative ways of solving problems. The three winning submissions split $40,000 in funding to further their proposals over the next year.

The winners are:

•   “Open Show Bible,” which is described as a collaborative and interactive “show bible” meant to save creative and production teams money during rehearsals, productions, and production re-mounts.
•  “Opera Map,” a database that uses 360-degree photogrammetry capture for design, planning, and production rental.
• “Becoming,” a musical experience that combines virtual reality, haptic feedback, and Space3D at the Qualcomm Institute.

“I am so proud of the outcomes of Opera Hack, and look forward to sharing these projects publicly,” wrote San Diego Opera General Director David Bennett in a press release. “When we created the Hack, we wanted to have brilliant minds from the opera and theater worlds share thinking with other brilliant minds in technology, to address challenges facing the production of live theater today. These three projects all do that, in unique and innovative ways. I’m also thrilled that we’ve just been awarded funding for Opera Hack.2, which will further advance this sort of collaborative thinking.”