Founded by director Daisy Evans in London just more than a decade ago, Silent Opera proudly produces opera performances "for the next generation" using technology popularised by the silent disco movement. During these immersive performances, participants can either listen to the opera singers live, backed by performers on live instruments, or put on wireless headsets to hear a pre-recorded full orchestral performance of the opera they are experiencing.

But the popular silent discos that have emerged in recent years weren't the original inspiration for the company, Evans told FestMag in Hong Kong late last year while she was preparing for their 2023 HKAF show Vixen alongside company music director Stephen Higgins.

"When I was growing up in London, there was a lot of really cool theatre stuff happening. There was a big fringe scene and there's a lot of experimental and immersive theatre," she says. "I came from a musical background, I really liked opera, and I thought, 'How can I get opera to do what these other theatre companies are doing?'

"The only opera I could see was the Royal Opera House and the English National Opera and these big, kind of scary, expensive institutions. And a lot of those doors were barred to me at that age. But I wanted to get straight in there and start creating."