Mozart Minecraft opera to live-stream this week

4 December 2013, 11:28 | Updated: 18 September 2014, 15:21

An opera based on the phenomenally popular videogame Minecraft and the music of Mozart will have its premiere live-streamed in two performances this week.

The opera, written earlier this year by university and high-school students at Virginia Tech University, is called OperaCraft and takes the music of Mozart as its starting point, and applies it to the in-game setting of Minecraft.

The performance will see a cast of Minecraft characters controlled by a group of high-school students and voiced by music students from Virginia Tech, with the result being projected onto a 26-foot screen and streamed live across the internet.

Assistant professor at the university Ariana Wyatt commented: "It's really cool, really interesting to see and surprisingly powerful when there is a tragedy at the end."

Two performances are scheduled for this week - one today at 7:30pm and another on Saturday at 2pm (Eastern Time). You can watch the live stream here.

Minecraft is a building-based open-source game that allows players to create buildings from polygonal blocks. It has become an award-winning critical hit and phenomenally popular among gamers.