Lighthouse ArtSpace Chicago (108 W. Germania Pl.) today announced its newest exhibition that will take the immersive medium in a new and exciting direction utilizing the latest technology to amplify timeless music. The pioneering Italian creative team that created the acclaimed Immersive Van Gogh returns with Mozart Immersive: The Soul of a Genius (opening on March 10, 2023). Tickets are on sale at mozartimmersive.com. Chicago is the city chosen to receive the world premiere of Mozart Immersive.
Mozart Immersive stands out from previous Lighthouse Immersive productions in that Mozart’s brilliant compositions are the primary focus; with captivating visuals built around the auditory experience with the assistance of Midjourney AI. The creative team used Midjourney to craft dream-like visuals inspired by 18th century destinations that Mozart experienced. Audiences will be surrounded by bustling city streets, ornate royal auditoriums and lavish paintings, in addition to otherworldly dreamscapes featuring fantastical lucid imagery, all accompanied by some of Mozart’s most beloved melodies arranged by Composer Luca Longobardi. The music for Mozart Immersive was performed by the acclaimed, Grammy-nominated Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra under the baton of world-renowned Maestro Constantine Orbelian: a four-time Grammy Award nominee in his own right who is also the music director and principal conductor
for the New York City Opera.
“With this piece, we wanted to represent every part of Mozart’s life, from his happy times as a child prodigy and throughout his amazingly prolific career, creating some of the best music ever composed," said Creator Massimiliano Siccardi. “We want the audience to see the world through Mozart’s eyes, both humanizing him and celebrating his genius and incredible body of work.”
Also setting Mozart Immersive apart from previous Lighthouse offerings is recorded footage of actors presented alongside the animation. The legendary dancer and actor Mikhail Baryshnikov assumes the heart-rending role of Mozart’s father, Leopold, who would launch Mozart’s early career but who became estranged from his son later in life.
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to portray one of the most obvious, albeit controversial, figures in Mozart’s life in this truly distinctive immersive presentation,” said Baryshnikov. “Leopold Mozart took his young son to the heights of stardom, only to become a contentious influence on Mozart in his adulthood. Since this exhibition is an exploration of Mozart’s soul, Leopold is a character to be paid attention to.”
The internationally acclaimed creative team of Massimiliano Siccardi (Artistic Creator), Luca Longobardi (Composer) and Vittorio Guidotti (Artistic Director) will take us on a brilliantly surreal journey into the mind and soul of a genius.
“In order to fully capture the genius of Mozart’s oeuvre of work, we knew that we needed to bring in top-level talent from the classical music industry to assemble the accompanying score,” said Svetlana Dvoretsky, co-founder of Lighthouse Immersive and producer of Mozart Immersive. “With the help of Maestro Constantine Orbelian, we have created a magnificent, melodic soundscape to accompany the visuals crafted by our creative team. The resulting piece, with visuals assembled with the help of AI-generated imagery, is a highly sophisticated and thrilling confluence of brilliant music and stunning visuals that is elevated by Mikhail Baryshnikov’s portrayal of Mozart’s father.”
Featured in the work are some of Mozart’s best loved compositions, including Symphony No. 40, Requiem, Turkish March, Ave Verum Corpus and a selection of works from Mozart’s acclaimed operas, The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, among other pieces.
Mozart Immersive premieres at Lighthouse ArtSpace Chicago March 10, 2023. For more information, please visit mozartimmersive.com or follow @lighthouseartspacechicago on Facebook and Instagram.
About Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Born in 1756 in Salzburg, Austria to an upper-class family, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart quickly took to music, becoming a child prodigy capable of performing short compositions on keyboard instruments at just four years old. By age five, he had already started scribbling down his own compositions. At age six, Mozart’s father took him to Munich to play at the Bavarian court, and then to Vienna to perform for noblemen in their homes. Mozart’s father, Leopold, immediately recognized his son’s potential and took him on a tour of all the renowned music capitals of western Europe over the course of several years. While he helped launch Mozart’s musical career, letters between Leopold and Mozart relay an air of animosity, as Mozart felt stifled by his father’s demands and expectations.
By age 13, Mozart was appointed an honorary Konzertmeister at the Salzburg court in Austria. His accolades would quickly accumulate. Everywhere Mozart travelled, he picked up new styles and methods to incorporate into his music. His most defining attributes were his unorthodox combinations of musical styles and his mastery of every conceivable genre at the time. Despite this, Mozart had trouble finding permanent employment that satisfied him. He would eventually settle in Austria, where he created some of his best works. Mozart would complete over 600 musical compositions before he died from a sudden illness at the age of just 35, including over 50 symphonies and 22 operas, many of which are still performed today.
About the Creative Team
MASSIMILIANO SICCARDI, Artistic Creator:
Massimiliano studied at the London School of Contemporary Dance of London. But in 1990, he left the world of dance to begin a new journey in the world of video art. Massimiliano quickly became the artistic force behind several visual mise-en-scène for choreographers around the world. He also created video scenographies for numerous prestigious festivals and galas around the world. He also re-constructed the video mapping of the Basilica di Giotto and for the Teatro Petruzzelli of Bari, where one of his permanent installation’s virtually reconstruct the frescoes of the Cupola. Massimiliano is also a celebrated photographer and has had photo exhibitions in Spoleto and Rome, to name a few. He is professor of digital image elaboration at the Accademia di Comunicazione e Immagine of Rome. In 2012 Massimiliano received theprestigious International Award “Romaindanza” for his talent in the visual work of dance theatre.
Since 2012, he has been artist-in-residence at the Carrières de Lumières - Atelier des Lumières where he authored the mise-en-scène of numerous immersive shows. He is currently creating projects within Italy as well as New York, Berlin, Leipzig and Rome.
VITTORIO GUIDOTTI, Artistic Director:
Vittorio graduated in Film Direction and Production from the European Institute of Design of Rome in 2007. In 2012 he created his first video-projected scenography for the show “Di Me in Me”, written and choreographed by Adriana Boriello, which premiered at the Dance Biennale of Venice in 2012. He then began collaborating with artist Massimiliano Siccardi, creating several pieces of video scenography for the National Dance Academy of Rome. In 2016 the two of them designed a permanent installation for the Dancing Satyr Museum in Mazzara del Vallo and the following year, they both took part in an exhibition for the International Museum of Perfume in Grasse, France. Vittorio then moved to London, where he kept working as director and visual artist. In 2018 his microbudget short film “Almost Sunny” won the Assurdo Film Festival and the Los Angeles Cinefest. The following year, his short film “Is this Life?” starring Himesh Patel, debuted at the showcase of That Film! in Cannes 2019 and was selected at the London Lift-Off festival. Throughout all this, he continued collaborating with Massimiliano Siccardi and became Creative Director of Animations, as well as co-author, of all his exhibitions.
LUCA LONGOBARDI, Composer:
Italian composer and pianist Luca Longobardi is a classically trained musician who incorporates the contemporary electronic music into his pieces. Born in 1976, Longobardi studied classical music in Italy and New York and went on to earn his doctorate in digital audio restoration in Rome in 2011. His works reveal a strong interaction between classical and contemporary music. The experience he has gained as a theatre musician has increased his interest in the relationship between sounds and spectacle; he has composed music for ballets and films and accompanied installations and experimental art productions (Atelier de Lumières - Paris, Carrière des Lumières - Baux-de-Provence, Kunstkraftwerk - Leipzig). At his multimedia performances and in his recordings, strong experimental electronic music meets pure, ethereal and simple-seeming piano playing that nevertheless relays deep emotions.
CONSTANTINE ORBELIAN, Conductor:
Four-time Grammy-nominated conductor Constantine Orbelian has been called “the singer’s dream collaborator” by Opera News, which hailed him for conducting vocal repertoire “with the sensitivity of a lieder pianist.” He has toured and recorded with some of the world’s greatest singers, such as American stars Renée Fleming, Sondra Radvanovsky and Lawrence Brownlee. Maestro Orbelian’s accomplishments include being Music Director of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia of Russia, founder of the annual Palaces of St. Petersburg International Music Festival, Chief Conductor of the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra in Lithuania, and Artistic Director of the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in Yerevan, Armenia. Maestro Orbelian has recorded over 60 CDs for the DELOS Label and has additional DVDs and CDs, which have been released on Decca, Deutsche Gramophone, Chandos, Philips and Warner labels.
MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV, Performer:
Born in Riga, Latvia and living in New York City, Mikhail Baryshnikov has distinguished himself as an extraordinary dancer and performer in theater, television and film. In a career spanning more than 50 years, he has worked with George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and many other illustrious choreographers and directors. From 1979-1989 he was artistic director of American Ballet Theater where, for the next decade, he introduced a new generation of dancers and choreographers. From 1990-2002, Mr. Baryshnikov was director and principal dancer of the White Oak Dance Project, co-founded with choreographer Mark Morris. In 2005, he opened the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC), a creative space designed to support multidisciplinary artists from around the globe. Mr. Baryshnikov’s many awards include the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor of France, Japan’s prestigious Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award in Theatre/Film, and most recently the Royal Academy of Dance ‘s Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Award.
About Lighthouse Immersive
Lighthouse Immersive creates, produces and distributes innovative digital immersive art experiences through its experiential entertainment multiplex digital art galleries, aiming to cultivate community and creativity through large-scale events and exhibitions of all art forms. Lighthouse Immersive offers versatile spaces for creators to present their work while engaging audiences in unique art experiences that encourage dialogue and inspire new artistic creations.
Lighthouse Immersive has produced the world premiere of Immersive Van Gogh, Immersive Frida Kahlo and Immersive Klimt: Revolution to more than 21 North American cities. Recognized as the leader in immersive art experiences, Lighthouse Immersive custom-designs each of their venues, named Lighthouse ArtSpace, to distinctly envelop the various architectural settings they inhabit, it operates galleries in a range of historic venues including refurbished industrial and retail spaces.
Since 2021, the company has opened or is opening 24 new galleries in North American cities including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Boston and Denver, and is currently expanding into additional markets. To date, Lighthouse Immersive has sold over 5 million tickets to Immersive Van Gogh across North America, with Artnet calling it “one of the largest coordinated art phenomena of all time.”
About Maestro Immersive Art
Maestro Immersive Arts was founded in 2019 as the latest creative venture by the producer team Maria Shclover and Irina Shabshis, in partnership with Lighthouse Immersive. As part of Maestro Artist Management, the partners presented more than 1,000 events and sold over 700,000 tickets with tours of renowned theaters, orchestras and dance companies, working with some of the world's biggest names. The partners' non-profit Cherry Orchard Festival Foundation, founded in 2012, quickly became a summer theater staple in New York and beyond, with rave reviews from critics and audiences, welcoming prominent international artists and performers from around the globe to New York's most prominent stages.
Maestro Immersive operates successful venues in Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis, and is currently planning a 2023 opening in Miami.