With a new Google Ukraine project, anyone can visit famous Ukrainian opera houses without leaving their chair.
The company has designed a website that offers 3D tours around five Ukrainian opera houses in partnership with the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.
The project is dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv, which is one of the places to visit on the virtual map.
“Opera theaters are the pearls of European culture — places where music, literature, acting and unique architecture intertwine,” Google Ukraine wrote in their official blog.
The project is part of the Ministry of Culture’s Authentic Ukraine campaign, which aims to promote the cultural heritage of Ukraine around the world.
Previously, Google Ukraine produced similar online tours for Ukrainian wooden churches and outdoor museums from the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Although the website attracted a lot of public attention, its technical side still needs improvement.
The website’s main page features a map of Ukraine with five opera houses marked on it: the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv, Lviv National Opera, Olha Kobylyanska Academic Music and Drama Theater in Chernivtsi, Kyiv National Academic Operetta Theater and Odesa National Academic Theater of Opera.
All of the theaters were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Visitors to the website can pick an opera house, read the description, and move around inside the buildings.
A voice guide is available in three languages: English, Ukrainian, and Russian. It includes the history of each building, its construction, architectural style and value.
“It’s a virtual journey that gives an opportunity to get acquainted with the unique architecture of opera theaters of Ukraine,” the statement reads.
To create the tours, Google Ukraine has taken over 300 panoramic photos and shot 360-degree videos in the opera houses.
The tours can be viewed on a smartphone, tablet, or computer.
The company recommends visitors to use virtual reality goggles “to dive into the theatrical atmosphere.”
Technical shortcomings
Katya Taylor, the founder of Port creative hub, a multifunctional space for contemporary cultural initiatives, believes that while VR tours can’t substitute the real-life experience, it should be used as much as possible to give people from away a chance to explore art.
She adds that how it’s done is important.
Taylor says she liked the idea of VR tours to the Ukrainian opera houses but “there are some technical shortcomings.”
She says she thought it could be more modern and the voice guidance could be done in a more casual tone, “without theatrical pathos.”
“In modern world — moreover, in modern theater — nobody talks like that,” she told the Kyiv Post.
She also says that the same music is played as loud as the voice guidance, and “you get tired of that.”
And there are some photographic details that need improvement, too, she says.
“If you shoot a historical architectural construction maybe it’s worth to remove the old Soviet table from the frame.”
Apart from that, Taylor says that if the website has an educational aim and is designed for youth, it should be delivered in their language.
She compares the Ukrainian project to the documentary movie “The Vatican Museums 3D.”
“It’s made in a modern way. The head of the museum talks to you, he has a human voice and a human face.”
She says that projects like “The Vatican Museums 3D” contribute to the connection between generations when classics and history, the things that come from the past, are transferred to the future with a modern language.
In Ukrainian project the realization of the beautiful idea didn’t achieve this connection, she says.
Art and technologies
Taylor believes that the combination of art and technologies is “a beautiful idea.”
“We move that way anyway, we can’t stop it.”
She says that there are some great experiments of such combinations.
One of them is the digitalized “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by the Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch. The digital version of the painting is divided into little parts that can be zoomed, and there are sounds that accompany every part of the painting: Eden, the Garden of Earthly Delights, and Hell.
Taylor says that in today’s art it’s very important for viewers not to remain detached. They should be able to be a part of the art — with a guide that tells a story or some interactive tools. And she emphasizes that the internet is a great platform to get viewers involved in art.
To explore Ukraine’s opera houses, go to theatres.authenticukraine.com.ua/en
