MOZART & MARTÍN Y SOLER: VIRTUAL REALITY FOR THE DIFFUSION
     OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ASPECTS 

The project “Mozart&Martín y Soler” attempts to spread the general public’s knowledge of two composers whose lives and artistic careers crossed in several ways, showing some interesting coincidences, even though the present recognition of their artistic production is so strongly different. The following sections describe the objectives posed at the beginning of the project, the technical solutions selected during its development and the  most relevant results produced.  

The idea to use Virtual Reality for the Diffusion of Cultural Heritage concerning the relationship between the musicians W.A. Mozart and V. Martín y Soler was officially presented in the Rey Juan Carlos University, in Madrid, on October 24^th 2006, during the so called Jornadas internacionales sobre Mozart en la URJC (International Meeting about the live and work of Mozart), organized to commemorate the 250^th anniversary of Mozart’s birth and 200^th anniversaty of Martin y Soler’s death. 

During the organization of that international meeting the European Commission published a Call of Proposals (DG EAC Nº23/06) to organize of cross-border events at venues in Augsburg, Salzburg and Vienna concerning the work of W.A. Mozart to highlight the importance of his work for music and European culture. 

According to the elegibility criteria in the Call of Proposals, partners of different European countries were involved with the ultimate aim of achieving European-level cooperation.  The three partners were: 

1)      Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Móstoles (Madrid), Spain

2)      Instituto Histórico Austriaco, Madrid, Spain

3)      Musiksammlung der Stadt Wien, Vienna, Austria 

Members of the University Rey Juan Carlos group of researchers: 

Dr. Luis Pastor Pérez, University Professor, Head of the Department of Computer Architecture, Computer Graphics Sciences and Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Pilar Martino Alba, Assistant Professor, Department of Philologie, German Section, Coordinator of the project.

Dr. José San Martín López, Titular Professor, Department of Computer Architecture, Computer Graphics Sciences and Artificial Intelligence.

Dr. Alfonso Cuadrado Alvarado, Titular Professor, Department of Communication and Information Sciences I, Head of the Experimental Laboratory of Synthetic Images and Animated Graphics.

Dr. Caroline Larboulette, Visiting Professsor, Department of Computer Architecture, Computer Graphics Sciences and Artificial Intelligence. 

The original idea of reconstructing the itinerary of Mozart and Martin y Soler for Europe across the most representative historical buildings is represented in a system of Virtual Reality immersive show room (Cave). This system, enormously spectacular and of enormous visual impact is not nevertheless easily trasladable for histechnical complexity. By it  was decided to realize an interactive DVD that allows to have in a support the virtual walk that is represented also in Cave. 

The interactive dvd begins with a screen that he guides to the user to any of two big parts: the virtual walk and the interactive application Mozart and Martin y Soler. Equally on this screen they appear:

Virtual walk. Consists of a screen where there appear the buildings of several European cities that by means of an interactive visor are going to allow to the user move for the space the building to bring over and to be seen in several points of view. This virtual walk is the recreation in DVD of the interactive experience of the Cave.
 

Interactive application. It is the most extensive part of the application. After the presentation of the associates who have taken part in the project it passes to Europa's map where there are located simultaneously the itineraries that continued along several cities, Mozart and Martin y Soler. From here the user it can choose any of the cities and accede to a screen with more information. Another way of consulting the interactive one is a composer chooses and from there continuing with his itinerary. 

The interactive DVD other one proposes facet of the virtual reconstruction of the works of Mozart and Martin y Soler. They are the virtual operas. There have been selected two representative operas of both authors: Don Giovanni and Una cosa rara. By means of the technologies of synthetic image in 3D, several videos have realized that represent the works. In case of Una cosa rara, the offer has a special relevancy since there does not exist any audio-visual recording of the above mentioned work. This offer is connected with the general objective of the project: the reconstruction and diffusion of the cultural European legacy by means of the new technologies. To visualize thanks to the virtual reality or by means of technologies of 3D any unknown opera or of costly representation is a new form and whose use the project Mozart and Martin y Soler as advanced system of spreading the cultural European legacy.

 Video Opera Don Giovanni