Festival Programme 2026 Youth at Ultima 2026

Sound Switchers present crypt_

Yuri Umemoto · Oslo Sinfonietta · Ivar Furre Aam

Friday 11 September, at 18:00–20:30

250 kr

Tonight, Sound Switchers takes over.

Samuel, Diana, Olivia and Margot have chosen to present crypt_ because they recognise themselves in it — in the search for who you are, in a world split between tradition and digital doubles, and in the meeting between operatic voices and hyperpop. On top of that, the whole universe is drawn from anime aesthetics. This isn't an opera for your grandparents. This is an invitation from your peers.

Doors open at 6pm for snacks, mocktails, mingling and anime drawing in the foyer. Sound Switchers will give a short introduction before the performance begins at 7pm.

About the opera

A blind musician plays for an audience he cannot see. Night after night he performs his best, convinced he is entertaining a great lord and his court.

The Japanese ghost story of Hoichi the Earless has haunted Japanese culture for centuries. For composer Yuri Umemoto, it became something more personal. He transposes Hoichi’s tale into the present, where a young composer, Umemoto’s own alter ego, is lured into a crypt beneath a European church. There he encounters three ghostly nobles and their digital doubles, who put his deepest longings to the test: his ambition, his faith, his music, his sense of who he is. The question at the heart of the opera is deceptively simple: what do you want, and at what cost?

Premiere of crypt_ at Münchener Biennale. Photo: Frol Podlesnyi

Want to know more?

Composer Yuri Umemoto is 24 years old. Umemoto grew up in Akihabara in Tokyo, surrounded by the visual and sonic worlds of Japanese popular culture, while also listening to Western classical music and singing in Catholic church choirs. These worlds never fully separated. In crypt_, they collide.
crypt_ is inspired by the Japanese ghost story of Hoichi the Earless, a blind biwa player whose music draws the dead to him. Monks try to protect Hoichi with sacred texts written on his body, but forget his ears, which the ghosts tear away.
Initiated by Ultima, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, the outreach programme Sound Switchers gives young people aged 16–19 the opportunity to develop content and events for other young people. Sound Switchers is made possible with support from Sparebankstiftelsen DNB, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung and Furestiftelsen.