The Finnish National Opera and Ballet (FNOB) teamed up with XR hardware manufacturer Varjo to use VR in stage design. The production of a stage can be a costly due to different locations that artistic and technical teams are in. Thanks to a digital twin of the theatre where the opera will be performed, the team develop the opera stage from their own home. This saved the production 20% in labor costs and 1,500 hours or €75.000.
The production of the FNOB is a rendition of Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot. It tells the story of a price who falls in love with the cold princess Turandot. The performance began on January 27th and runs until March 4th of 2023. It is not the performance itself, but the production of the stage for which FNOB sought help from Varjo. During the production phase, the technical and creative teams used the professional-grade VR headset Varjo Aero.
The creative team of this opera developed a design visualization tool called XR Stage. The tool, which was built with Unreal Engine, was used from the first proof-of-concepts to the final production. The virtual set was developed by Finnish studio ZOAN before the actual set was built. Stage production teams could meet up and collaborate remotely in VR from anywhere in the world, instead of having to fly to Helsinki.
VR in stage design saves 20% in costs
According to FNOB, the most obvious benefits of using VR in stage design was the reduction in time and money. On the one hand, they saved material costs compared to conventional stage design. On the other hand, they saved labor costs. They even claim to have saved 20% in budgeted labor costs. They also saved 1,500 hours in production, saving around €75.000 in the process.
Timo Tuovila, production and technical director at FNOB, said in a statement: “Our technical team recognized that we needed a more efficient solution to provide our artistic teams with faster and better-quality results. Our artists were only open to using virtual tools if models would be photorealistic and it was an intuitive user experience. Varjo’s VR/XR technology enables just that. We have been able to create a digital twin of our stage that is true to life, matching the expectations of our ambitious artistic and technical teams.”
