An Opera Application

On a recent visit to the Met, I was thinking about super-titles and their back-of-seat titling system. And I idly wondered if the same technology would be possible on our smartphones. As part of a “Make a Thing A Day Project,” I decided to create a mockup for an iphone (or ipad) app for opera audiences. In the very early days of opera, before an opera performance, you purchased a small booklet, the libretto, diminutive of the Italian word “libro” (book), which gave you the translations, and provided some context for the performance. Ever since City Opera introduced super-titles in their opera house, we have no longer needed to bring librettos to a performance. I thought that it would be interesting to create an smartphone application that provided even more information (and functionality) than the printed book, and would allow audiences to have a deeper appreciation of the work that they’re seeing onstage. So I got my pad and paper, and made a really awkwardly drawn wireframe rendering, and then using the sketches, I created both an online playable mockup and a short video explaining the idea. You’ll have to forgive my terrible sketching ability, but I think it could be cool. It does, however, rely on the idea that it’d be okay to pull out your phone while watching an opera (GASP!). Here’s the video: Libretto, The App from Michael Rau on Vimeo. The accompanying PopApp prototype is no longer available. Anyone interested in developing this idea even further? Am I totally nuts? Does this thing already exist?