Google Glass used by Teatro Lirico di Cagliari to stream opera

Ever wonder what an opera looks and sounds like from the stage?

You can find out this afternoon, when an Italian opera company shares a new perspective of Giacomo Puccini's Turandot through a special pair of opera glasses – Google Glass.

On Wednesday night, the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari on the Italian Island of Sardinia will debut its "Glass Opera Interactive" performance of Turandot. Performers and crew will wear Google's internet-connected, computer-equipped glasses to stream video and images to the public from their own points of view – "from the soprano's to the stagehand's," the opera house announced in a news release.

The performance begins at 9 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET, noon PT) and the streams will be available in real time on the Teatro Lirico's Facebook page and Twitter feed.

The show, considered by the company to be an experiment, will run until Aug. 16. 

Mauro Meli, general manager of the opera house. told the Wall Street Journal that the performance aims to attract younger audiences that have not been traditionally interested in going to the opera.

Since Google Glass became available to some users last year, it has been used in a number of other different performances, including:

• Cornell University classical conductor Cynthia Turner has used music displayed on the screen to replace music stands, and to project a conductor's eye view of the performance onto a screen above the orchestra.
• The U.S. a capella group Pentatonix has used it to share their perspective from the stage.