Opera is everything all at once: music and drama, poetry and dance, grandeur and intimacy, spectacle and sound. But for audience members who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who are blind or have low vision, attending an opera can be a frustrating experience, The Washington Post reports.
A pilot program at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is trying on a new approach for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to experience opera with the SoundShirt. This jacket-like garment is equipped with 16 haptic actuators that transmit sound from the orchestra and stage into pulses, vibrations and other forms of haptic feedback in the shirt itself.