When a theater is demolished, the performances, the acoustics, and the shared experience of attending disappear with the building. Virtual Reality can bring these elements back inside a reconstructed space, provided the reconstruction goes beyond static visualization. This work presents an integrated framework to enable shared, interactive and immersive visits to lost theatrical heritage, combining visual and acoustic reconstruction, a catalog of theatrical performances with subtitles, Points of Interest with multilingual audio narration, and real-time volumetric capture of remote visitors rendered as holographic presences inside the virtual space. The approach is demonstrated through Casa de Comedias de l’Olivera, a Valencian theater first built in 1584, rebuilt in 1618, and demolished in the mid eighteenth century.

This paper presents a research framework for investigating Quality of Experience (QoE) aspects when interactively exploring reconstructions of cultural heritage in Virtual Reality (VR) settings. In particular, it revolves around a reconstruction of the Corral de Comèdies de l’Olivera, a 16th-century theater from Valencia demolished in 1748. The presented framework enables an interactive exploration of the reconstructed virtual environment through various navigation methods and User Interface (UI) presentation approaches, specifically designed for VR. Likewise, the reconstruction includes diverse Points of Interest (PoIs) containing historical information, theatrical performances including diverse video formats, and a personalized presentation of accessibility features. Overall, the paper aims to showcase how immersive technologies can preserve and disseminate cultural heritage that no longer exists physically. The modular implementation of the considered interaction features and methods additionally constitute a powerful framework to explore and validate QoE design patterns for optimal virtual heritage experiences.

Social eXtended Reality (XR) is poised to become a dominant medium for remote communication, social interaction, and collaboration in the near future.However, its potential can be significantly magnified by integrating additional technological enablers.On the one hand, the support for realistic and volumetric holographic representations of users, captured in real-time via affordable setups, will result in enhanced levels of quality of interaction, co-presence and trustworthiness compared to using synthetic avatar-based user representation formats.On the other hand, the availability of highquality multi-modal virtual production tools will enrich the immersion, interaction and storytelling possibilities, while it will allow providing such engaging services to large-scale audiences via 2D video distribution platforms.This paper presents a strategic vision toward achieving a modular and seamless integration between innovative Social XR, holographic communication, and virtual production tools to exploit all such potential advantages.In particular, it proposes a high-level architectural framework to cohesively integrate such technological enablers, accommodating novel features to meet newly derived requirements.Then, it outlines potential applicability scenarios and reports preliminary results as initial evidence of the full achievable potential.