Supported by & in Partnership with:
LUCIA invites the viewer into the mental and sensory space of Lucia, the operatic heroine from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.
Rather than portraying her from the outside, as a 'madwoman' holding a dagger covered in blood, this experience positions the participant inside Lucia’s psyche, reframing her hysteria as a rational response to social, emotional, and systemic pressure.
Drawing on feminist critique, the work rejects the operatic tradition of spectacle and instead centres Lucia’s interiority: the distortions, textures, and repetitions of a mind under strain.
Participants sit in a circle of eight, each embodying Lucia’s point of view via headset and sound. Imagery and sound design reference glass harmonicas, hallucinatory light, and fragmented memory; all structured to mirror the unstable logic of a psychological dissociation.
This is not a performance of madness. It is an act of re-voicing.
Toby Young is a composer and sound designer whose work blends classical music with cutting-edge technology. He has collaborated with artists ranging from the Royal Opera to The Rolling Stones, and as Music Supervisor at Punch drunk, shaped the sound of BAFTA-nominated productions across TV and stage. At Guildhall, he leads Immersive Opera: a £1.4M research project fusing innovation and storytelling to reimagine how opera is experienced in the 21st century.
Leila Alexander is a soprano & opera maker who creates and performs multidisciplinary performance art. She is inspired by boundary-crossing stories and innovative technologies, blending timeless art forms with contemporary settings. Leila has produced and consulted for opera companies worldwide and has performed at renowned venues, including Wigmore Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, Tibilisi Opera House, and the Venice Biennale.
Christian Venables is a UK VR/AR artist and developer who is passionate about creating an interactive 3D art accessible to all. He is inspired by architecture, industrial design, sculpture, graphic design and many other external sources. He appreciates the freedom to create in VR, records the process in XR, and shares/distributes with AR.
Award-winning British-Jamaican soprano, Rachel Duckett, has won major awards including the Sir Willard White Trophy and Grand Prixde la Voix du CALM. She has performed in renowned venues from Royal Albert Hall to Opera de Nice, in roles such as Lakmé, Olympia, Adele, and Queen of the Night. Upcoming reprisal Daughter 1Akhnaten (Philharmonie de Paris)
Dr Toby Young
Leila Alexander
Christian Venables
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Rachel Duckett
Kuba Jekiel
