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'Vocaloid Opera with Japanese Puppets' Promo Streamed

Website Cinema Today began streaming a promotional video for a performance titled "Vocaloid Opera with Japanese Puppets." The opera uses Vocaloids Yuzuki Yukari and Nekomura Iroha, as well as the Yamaha Vocaloid VYIV3 as the vocals for the songs.

The website describes the opera (the website is available in both English and Japanese):

It's a 30 minute-length opera film, in which you will see no human being acting. It's VOCALOID that provides all the songs for the play. VOCALOID is a technology of singing voice synthesis and the name of application software based on that technology. And all the actresses in the play are Bunraku puppets. Bunraku is one of Japan's traditional performing arts with 300 years of history. The trinity of lifelike puppet play, songs from VOCALOID and techno music using Japanese traditional musical instruments illustrates the complexity of human deep psyche.

The website also describes the story of the opera:

The chapter “Aoi” is from the famous work of Japanese literature “Genji monogatari” (The Tale of Genji) that is sometimes called the world's first novel and has been arranged in a contemporary style.

It depicts the strange things which happen to Aoi, a star singer who closely works with Hikaru, a popular musical composer. One day Aoi's manager receives a call that Aoi has been involved in an accident and hurries up to the hospital. What she sees in Aoi's patient room is a psychiatrist, and Aoi apparently possessed by the spirit of Midori. Midori is a VOCALOID character who had once taken the world by storm but had then been forgotten by Hikaru and the world.

Is she really possessed by Midori or is it Aoi herself tormented by her conflicting mind?

A video and audio release of the opera is scheduled to be released sometime this fall or winter. Updates about the release will be posted on the opera's official Twitter and Facebook accounts when they are available.