The Last First Garden

Presentation

THE LAST FIRST GARDEN is an immersive energy-transparent digital opera integrating audiences before, during and after the performance. Inspired by Chlorophytum propagation, this opera is a living ecosystem where art, nature and technology meet in one score.
At its centre is Clara, the last Mother Plant on Earth, a living protagonist whose life becomes the pulse. Through Luma, her digital twin, and audience-grown digital music seeds, the work continues beyond the stage.
After ecological collapse, 4 Guardians protect Clara. 3 sing memories of a vanished world: a first kiss under rain; ignored creatures—mosquitoes as “difficult but misunderstood violinists”;and a grandmother whose watering ritual became sacred. The 4th, Digital Angel, is sung live and motion-captured on a transparent LED surface, remembering a future not yet lived.
Before the opera, audiences anonymously contribute memories of nature and enters through the Memory Well, where Playtronica’s Liquid Pulse turns water and touch into sound. During the opera, Clara’s environmental & bioelectrical data, with Copernicus climate data, modulate a human-composed score and visual world: Clara breathes and conducts, and the opera follows her.
The guardians go to sleep in magnetic-tape costumes releasing lost-world soundscapes through movement. Audience memories become artist-authored, AI-assisted collective dreams projected onto recycled fabrics, while the Angel dissolves and takes root as Luma.
In the finale, all digital systems cut out for The Unplugged Minute: one plant, one light. Music regrows through wireless touch instruments placed among the audience until the chain reaches Clara and Luma relights.
Each spectator (or a remote participant online) receives a plantable seed-paper card carrying a web-based digital music seed that grows online through humming and short text messages, as if speaking to a Chlorophytum child before joining the Global Chlorophytum Choir of Luma.
The opera does not end—it propagates.

Artistic Team

THE LAST FIRST GARDEN is led by an interdisciplinary team chosen for roles across opera, digital media, interaction, movement, plant care and participation. Yury Revich — Austrian, he/him — creator, artistic director, composer, stage director and violinist. An ECHO Klassik and ICMA winner, he leads the musical, dramaturgical and interdisciplinary vision. Pablo Marin-Reyes — Guatemalan, he/him — artistic management and project coordination, connecting partners, timeline, production needs and implementation. Mary Hickson — Irish, she/her — producing, dramaturgical and international development adviser through 12th Lock, selected for Cork Opera House, Sounds From A Safe Harbour, 37d03d and ambitious cross-disciplinary projects. Artem Kharchenko —Austrian, he/him — ØJE Studio real-time media and digital-stage lead, overseeing digital coordination, transparent LED, avatar/Luma system and Clara data visualisation. Aglaya Demidenko — German, she/her — Playtronica living-interface and plant-participation lead, developing Clara’s plant interface and plant-safe systems with specialists and biologists. Vincent de Malherbe — French, he/him — Playtronica interactive-sound lead, developing the Memory Well, wireless seed objects and participatory sound systems. Martin Rille — Austrian, he/him — costume designer and stage co-director, creating magnetic-tape costumes and wearable sound archives activated by movement and touch. Manaho Shimokawa — Japanese, she/her — movement director, shaping the guardians’ physical language and body/plant/digital relationship. Mariam Battistelli — Italian, she/her — soprano and vocal consultant, contributing human-recorded vocal material for digital seeds and vocal identity. Eran Egozy — American, he/him — MIT Professor and co-founder of Harmonix, advising on interactive music and audience participation. Together, the team is internationally diverse and technically specific, built to make the project innovative, feasible and accessible.

Partners