Hyper reality opera: Opera is no longer just the fat lady singing. New technologies are bringing an old art to new audiences. Dea Birkett experiences the world's first hyper-reality opera, ‘current, rising’, opening at the Royal Opera house, London, this spring

YOUR JOURNEY begins in a room called the House of Subconscious. You're wearing headphones, a small backpack containing a computer, and a VR headset. As you move freely through a dream-like virtual world, from twilight to dawn, the wind blows in your face, you drift over the sea, a city emerges from under your feet. Somewhere on the imaginary horizon, an orchestra plays while a soprano wanders around you singing.