Twitter has a very active community of opera singers and fans across the world. A group of singers on Twitter (myself included) wants to leverage this to perform together via webcams and the internet (on a Google+ hangout). We will rehearse and perform a short opera (tentatively Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas," but potentially Bizet's "Le docteur miracle" if the casting/scheduling requirements of the former are too taxing) entirely online. The rehearsals would be private but recorded for future reference, and the final performance would be broadcast live and advertised in opera communities (on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr; major blogs/forums like Parterre; and lists like Opera-L), plus recorded and uploaded to YouTube for later viewing. If this initial project is well-received, this would be the start of (what we believe to be) the world's only entirely online opera company.

[We recognize that there are some potential technology issues (e.g., internet delays or failures) here, which is part of why this is a proof-of-concept. If those issues prove insurmountable, we will explore alternative technology options, like partially or entirely recording individual video and audio in advance but combining and airing the parts all together.]