Keiichiro Shibuya’s android opera “MIRROR”, staged at the Châtelet in Paris from Wednesday, 21 June 2023, was a resounding success. The android opera “MIRROR”, featuring the android Alter 4 at its core, was a blend of Shibuya’s piano and electronic compositions, the 47-piece orchestra Appassionato, chants from five Koyasan monks, and visuals by artist Justine Emard, a long-time collaborator of Shibuya. This intricate fusion of human and AI-generated music was both complex and exquisite. The Châtelet, Paris’s oldest theatre, was awash with a mix of unease, tension, and occasional confusion. Yet, by the end, there was an undeniable sense of jubilation, echoing Alter 4’s proclamation, “Let’s celebrate this new experience together.”
 
Read a live report by TOKION.
 

 
“ANDROID OPERA MIRROR” KEIICHIRO SHIBUYA
 
VENUE: Théatre du Châtelet
DATES: 21-23 June, 2023
CO-REALISATION: Théâtre du Châtelet, ATAK, The Japan Foundation
 
DURATION: 70mins
 
CREDITS:
Concept, composition, piano, electronics: Keiichiro Shibuya
Lyrics: exerpts from The Possibility of an Island of Michel Houellebecq, On Certainty of Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as generated by GPT technology
Vocal: Android – Alter4
Buddhist Chant: Eizen Fujiwara, Yasuhiro Yamamoto, Taiko Kashihara, Hoshin Tani, Shoei Kametani members of the ensmble Koyasan Shomyo
Video creation: Justine Emard
Android programming: Shintaro Imai
Android design: Hiroshi Ishiguro
Orchestra Appassionato
 
*Courtesy of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge, translated into French by Danièle Moyal Sharrock © Editions Gallimard.
 
Artistc direction: Keiichiro Shibuya
Orchestration: Keiichiro Shibuya
Sound design: Yuki Suzuki
Production sound engineer: Unisson Design
Light design: Go Ueda
Android real-time projection: Kotaro Konishi
Stage Manager: So Ozaki
Assistant of Justine Emard: Bérangère Pollet, with the software assistance of Thomas Zaderatzky
Assistant of production: Shigeru Ogawa
 
Recording
Sound recording: Unisson Design, François Baurin
Filming: Jérémie Schellaert
 

Communication: Thierry Messonnier
Graphic design: Ryoji Tanaka (Semitransparent Design)
 
Direction of production: Natsumi Matsumoto
Production: ATAK

 
Android – Alter4 belongs to Osaka University of Arts
Technical Support: NATIVE INSTRUMENTS, Yamaha Corporation, YAMAHA MUSIC JAPAN CO., LTD., Sibelius by Rygasound, Genelec, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.
Android Music and Science Laboratory: Kawagoshi Sota, Kento Tanaka, Takumi Morimoto
Assistant of orchestrastion and production of music scores: Hiroto Kikukawa, Yuto Moritani, Yoko Nishimura
 
Special thanks to Kazuyo Sejima & Associates, Aya Soejima, Noriko Carpentier-Tominaga, Takashi Ikegami, Kenshu Shintsubo, Ayaka Endo, Nino Satoru, Christophe Brunnquell, Jean-Luc Choplin
 
Photos by Claude Gassian, Thomas Amouroux