Theory of Flames — Michel van der Aa

Theory of Flames is the new film opera by composer, librettist and director Michel van der Aa, premiered in 2026 at Dutch National Opera. The work lets live theatre and cinema fully merge: a mirror palace of moving film screens in which live singing and pre-recorded footage become one. The opera examines how we deal with truth in an age of disinformation and conspiracy thinking.

For a production that deliberately seeks the line between screen and stage, the image content had to work on two fronts at once. Beyond3D developed both the stage visuals for the live performance and the virtual production backdrops against which the film scenes were shot. Both tracks come from one visual language, so that the image on stage and the image in the film feel like the same world.

The stage visuals move with the shifting screens, the light and the direction. The virtual production environments give the film footage its depth and context, with perspective that moves with the camera. Where the two meet on stage, the difference between what is live and what is recorded fades.

This way the imagery contributes to what Theory of Flames sets out to be as an opera: a work in which reality can no longer be separated from its imagination.