An opera written using AI was presented at the Mariinsky Theatre

On June 19, at the XVIII St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and the Stars of the White Nights Festival, the premiere of the opera Mandragora, based on the idea of P. I. Tchaikovsky and S. A. Rachinsky and completed using AI technologies, took place on the New Stage of the Mariinsky Theater. This was reported by the press service of Sber, which provided access to the neural network.

"Mandragora is a collaboration between a large number of people: our wonderful musician and composer Peter Dranga, the brilliant maestro Valery Gergiev and, of course, the artists of the Mariinsky Theatre. And all this is implemented together with artificial intelligence, which saves a huge amount of time. Imagine how long it takes to arrange a score for a large symphony orchestra. This is not the composers' favorite work, because it takes up years of their lives. And thanks to artificial intelligence, a person can focus on creativity — the realization of what is inside him. And artificial intelligence can become a very powerful assistant and inspiration," said Herman Gref, President and Chairman of the Management Board of Sberbank.

The large-scale international project brought together more than 170 artists, including a symphony orchestra, choirs and soloists. The main roles were performed by Vasily Ladyuk and Alina Chertash, laureates of international competitions and recognized soloists, whose performances take place at the largest opera venues in the world.

"Today we have a determined attempt with our great friends from Sber to make a new stage version, where not only human talent, but also artificial intelligence is used. Recently, the latest technologies have been performing on the stages of world theaters, including in Russia. An incredible amount of interesting things has already been done in the world, and in the world of opera and ballet, using new technologies for real without breaking the natural connection with the creative work on which it is superimposed is the most difficult thing. We hope that our bold step will be received with interest," concluded Valery Gergiev, conductor, artistic director and General Director of the Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theaters.