FNOB
Morgonstjärnan – The Morning Star
© Photo credits: Illkka Saastamoinen
Use-case overview
The Morning Star mixed reality experience
The Finnish National Opera and Ballet (FNOB) production is one of four flagship cultural productions within the XTREME Horizon Europe project. Developed in close collaboration with FNOB in Helsinki, Finland, this production centres on creating a mixed reality experience inspired by the contemporary opera Morgonstjärnan – The Morning Star, which had its world premiere in Helsinki in January 2026.
The production explores how immersive technologies can extend and reframe contemporary opera for new audiences, enabling people to experience the depth of live opera from any location via mixed reality.
Key information
Title:
The Morning Star
Source Opera:
Morgonstjärnan – The Morning Star (world premiere January 2026)
Partner Institution:
Finnish National Opera and Ballet (FNOB), Helsinki, Finland
Production type: Multiplayer mixed reality opera experience
Date:
Premiering: October 2026
Technology:
Apple Vision Pro (XR)
Status:
Major data capture completed in February 2026; post-production phase
About the source opera
Morgonstjärnan – The Morning Star is a new opera commissioned by the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, based on the novel by internationally acclaimed Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård. The music was composed by Sebastian Fagerlund, with libretto by Gunilla Hemming and stage direction by Thomas de Mallet Burgess.
The opera received its world premiere in Helsinki at the end of January 2026. XTREME is proud to collaborate with the FNOB team to develop a mixed reality production inspired by this major new work, exploring how immersive technologies can extend the reach of contemporary opera to new and broader audiences.
Photo credits (gallery above): Illkka Saastamoinen
About the Mixed Reality experience
The XTREME mixed reality opera experience draws on three scenes from Morgonstjärnan – The Morning Star, selected to translate the emotional and dramatic core of the opera into an intimate XR setting. Each scene was chosen to work as a self-contained moment — few performers, a defined space, a concentrated emotional arc — allowing the audience to step into the opera world at close range instead of observe it from a distance.
- Scene 4 — Jenny Carlstedt and Tommi Kekarainen
- Scene 6 — Helena Juntunen and Janne Sihvo
- Scene 24 — Johan Reuter, Maria Lenart and Jere Hölttä
Wearing an Apple Vision Pro headset, the audience experiences the singers and the staged world of the opera reconstructed in three dimensions around them. Spatial audio places voices and orchestral sound in the room. The result is an encounter with opera that is both closer and stranger than a seat in the stalls — the performers present, the space transformed.
The experience premieres in October 2026.
Photo credits (gallery below): Justyna Starostka
Morgonstjärnan - The Morning Star
Proces
From first alignment to final experience — a structured, iterative creative journey.
Framing the Project & Aligning the Vision
The project started with an initial phase of aligning expectations and framing the project. As part of that process, the XTREME team travelled to Helsinki to begin developing the FNOB production in partnership with the Finnish National Opera and Ballet. This first visit established the creative and institutional relationship, explored the possibilities of mixed reality in an opera context, and set the direction for what would become one of XTREME’s most ambitious productions.
Read more: XTREME Opera MR partnership with the Finnish National Opera and Ballet
Morning Star – press release – October 2024
The Finnish National Opera and Ballet publicly revealed that its new commission — Morgonstjärnan – The Morning Star, based on Karl Ove Knausgård’s novel — would premiere in January 2026. The announcement confirmed the scale and ambition of the work the XTREME team had been developing the MR production around.
Read more: Finnish National Opera’s new commission Morgonstjärnan – The Morning Star premieres in January 2026
Creative development process – January to December 2025
The creative development process was led by Ane Skak, creative director of the XR experience, who with the FNOB and XTREME team lead intense development process. With the opera’s premiere approaching, the XTREME consortium gathered in Helsinki to advance the production. The consortium meeting brought together partners from across the project to align on the MR experience design, the scene selection, and the technical and creative approach ahead of the data capture.
Data capture for the MR production January/February/March 2026
To finalise the ambitious production, the XTREME capture team carried out three sessions at the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, capturing key scenes during the first full dress on stage rehearsal and then returning for a dedicated second phase with extended access. Three scenes were captured — Scenes 4, 6, and 24 — featuring seven singers under the direction of conductor Harri Karri, who led the selected scenes specifically for the capture process.
Orchestra audio captures: Orchestra audio captures took place on Jan 12 and 14 and chorus audio capture on March 19. Audio capture sessions included 70 orchestra players and 22 chorus singers (lady chorus for the scene 6). The sessions were conducted by Harri Karri. Eero Auvinen was recording in all of them, and a special thanks goes to our Orchestra Attendant Panu Leislahti.
Read more: Behind the Scenes at the Finnish National Opera: XTREME’s on-stage data capture
Read more: Big data capture at the Finnish National Opera
In all, the three sessions combined video, spatial audio, face capture, and ambisonic microphone recording across a multidisciplinary team.
Post-production phase – from March 2026
With all three scenes captured, the project moved into post-production — integrating the video, spatial audio, and performance data into the XTREME mixed reality experience. First user testing is planned for July 2026, ahead of the public premiere in October 2026.
XTREME Research areas
Audience experience in physical reality and in social XR (AALTO University)
3D Reconstruction of dynamically moving people, real-time motion capture of a person in a mobile environment, fine grain human pose estimation (Leibniz University Hannover)
3D Reconstruction of dynamic scenes/people (IT University of Copenhagen, Aalto University)
3D audio–visual reconstruction of the scene: mapping multichannel sound to an acoustic image stream, multimodal (Italian Institute of Technology)
Scene understanding and 3D semantic Visual reconstruction of the scene (University of Twente)
Sound reconstruction and visualization, music content understanding, human computer interaction and experience design (IT University of Copenhagen)
Human computer-interaction for social experience (University of Nottingham, IT University of Copenhagen)
Artistic research (University of Nottingham, IT University of Copenhagen)
User evaluation studies (XTREME Living Lab at University of Limerick)
Credits
Based on the novel by Karl Ove Knausgård
Original Opera Production (Finnish National Opera and Ballet)
Sebastian Fagerlund: Composer
Gunilla Hemming: Librettist
Thomas de Mallet Burgess: Director
Harri Karri: Conductor
Leslie Travers: Set Designer
Tracy Grant-Lord: Costume Designer
Matthew Marshall: Lighting Designer
Sue Mythen: Movement Director
Miia Lallukka: Producer
Cast: opera singers (Finnish National Opera and Ballet)
Johan Reuter
Jenny Carlstedt
Helena Juntunen
Janne Sihvo
Maria Lenart
Jere Hölttä
Cast: actors (Finnish National Opera and Ballet)
Tommi Kekarainen
Luke Terence Scott
Finnish National Opera and Ballet XTREME team:
Thomas de Mallet Burgess
Timo Tuovila
Miia Lallukka
Mixed Reality Experience
Ane Skak: Creative Direction (Immersive Stories)
Paul Tennent: MR Integration (University of Nottingham)
Daniel Skaale: Content Design (KHORA)
Emma Pi Larsen: CG Artist (KHORA)
Peiman Fallahian / Kira Lund / Maria Høeberg Holmberg: Technical Coordination (KHORA)
Simon Max Bloch Lajboschitz: KHORA’s Production lead
Yannis Parcharidis, Sakis Rogas, Kostas Iliadis: System Architecture, XR Integration, Gameplay Interaction & Content Design (BOLT Virtual)
Christian Sivertsen: Storyboard (IT University of Copenhagen)
Paul Tennent: VR Previz (University of Nottingham)
Bodo Rosenhahn, Tom Wehrbein, Yi Yang, Hendrik Hachmann: Human Reconstruction & Virtual Presence (Leibniz University Hannover)
Thore Ipsen, Mathias Bastholm: Motion Capture (Marionette)
Data Capture
Ane Skak: Creative direction of the capture (Immersive Stories)
Paul Tennent: Black Magic camera capture & Face camera capture (University of Nottingham)
Richard Ramchurn: Black Magic camera capture (University of Nottingham)
Eero Auvinen: Close-up microphones and sound design (Finnish National Opera and Ballet)
Kalle Rasinkangas: onsite technical support (Finnish National Opera and Ballet)
Miia Lallukka: producer and production coordination (Finnish National Opera and Ballet)
Caroline Gaudeoso: Ambisonic microphone capture (IT University of Copenhagen)
Harshit: GoPro video capture (IT University of Copenhagen)
Ariel Gjaci, Ritujoy Biswas: Eigenmike sound capture (IIT)
Justyna Starostka: Script supervision, production documentation, social media (IT University of Copenhagen)
Sami S. Brandt: Supervision and coordination of data capture processes (IT University of Copenhagen)
XTREME Project
Paul Tennent: Integration Work Package Leader (University of Nottingham)
Justyna Starostka: Project & Communication Manager (IT University of Copenhagen)
Sami S. Brandt: Project Coordinator (IT University of Copenhagen)
