AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France — The world of classical music is still figuring out what to do with virtual reality, an emerging technology that can be buggy and burdensome. So far, orchestras and opera houses have come up with little more than 360-degree videos that show concerts from the perspective of the conductor’s podium.

But there is a breakthrough in Michel van der Aa’s “Eight,” a so-called mixed reality work that had its premiere last month in Amsterdam and is currently on view here at the Aix Festival, through July 30, at Château La Coste.

“Eight” is an opera taken in through a virtual-reality headset. In about 15 minutes, with a genre-bending score that verges on pop (the singer-songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke is featured), it tells a poetic story of an old woman looking back on her life.

She beckons you to follow her down a corridor with white walls; once you start walking, you almost never stop, even as the hallway seems to open up into a mountainside and the full cosmos. (In reality, this all takes place in a space no larger than a bedroom.) As viewer, you are very much part of the piece, your hands visible as they reach for a railing and, at one point, lift a red tablecloth to crawl underneath.