The tale of Turandot and the memory of Giacomo Puccini cross time, rising from the ashes at every performance. La Scala in Milan, always keen to make the opera experience contemporary, will include AI in the next staging of Turandot on June 25. Paolo Gep Cucco, set designer with Davide Livermore and Eleonora Peronetti, describes an early 20th century Beijing, "dark and muddy", enhanced with LED screens that offer a digital depth impossible with traditional set design. Their company, D-Wok, has scenically transformed opera houses around the world, such as the Sydney Theatre, and contributed to the success of concerts by artists such as Cesare Cremonini and Tiziano Ferro. Artificial Intelligence comes into play in two ways: creating inspirational images and developing moving figures, such as women turning into peacocks or innovative dragons. The AIs used include Midjourney, ChatGPT and ComfyUI. Cucco emphasizes that it is now possible to control everything with great precision thanks to the software, allowing more alternatives to be explored and produced faster. Cucco's team, which considers itself an "artisan of the art", uses AI to multiply human capabilities, not replace them. One example is Rhine Gold for the Monte Carlo theater, where a plane ends up at the bottom of the river and the AI has created a striking image of the clouds as the surface of the water.
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