We caught up with Charlie Christos, a singer-songwriter who performs in the on-stage band for Prometheus Bound. This brand-new incarnation of Aeschylus's ancient tragedy recast as a rock show is currently playing at the American Repertory Theater's Club Oberon in Cambridge. It was directed by Death and the Powers' Diane Paulus, with a fresh, lean …
WGBH interviews Diane Paulus
Here's an in-depth interview on Boston's WGBH with Death and the Powers director Diane Paulus. She also speaks about her work on the Tony-nominated Broadway revival of Hair and the immersive rock musical Prometheus Bound, currently at Club Oberon in Cambridge. We haven't had a chance to hear much directly from Diane (little wonder, she …
Why Death and the Powers?
We were pleased to discover the Boston Musical Intelligencer, an erudite and elegant blog edited by pianist and musicologist Robert Levin and devoted to the classical music scene in Boston. They recently published a highly informative article about Tod Machover and his new opera, Death and the Powers. The article delves deeply into Tod's musical …
BBC World Service chats with Tod Machover
You can count on the BBC to produce great material, and this interview with Death and the Powers composer Tod Machover is no exception! The interviewer asks great questions. Are the operabots instruments or are they performers? How much is the pursuit of immortality a motivation for the composer? Is it about living forever through …
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Karole Armitage interview and dancing robots
In this delightful interview, celebrated choreographer Karole Armitage discloses how she thought about choreographing the movements for each character in Death and the Powers, including the operabots. You'll gain an appreciation for how she makes each personality vivid and convincing through movement. We include new footage of the Prelude and Nicholas (Hal Cazalet) cavorting with …
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Science Friday features Death and the Powers
NPR's popular weekly program, Science Friday, this week put a spotlight on Death and the Powers. Composer Tod Machover talks about his desire to use technology to amplify rather than diminish the live human presence in musical performance. You can listen to the podcast here (click on the audio player in the upper left-hand corner). …
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Tod Machover and Diane Paulus at “On Point”
Tom Ashbrook, host of the radio talk show "On Point", conducted a terrific interview today with Death and the Powers composer Tod Machover and director Diane Paulus. The conversation delved into whether today's technology has transformed the age-old human desire to conquer death into a quest that seems plausible and possibly even attainable in the …
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Interview with James Maddalena (Simon Powers)
Baritone James Maddalena chats about his role as Simon Powers in the new opera Death and the Powers. He describes the character of Powers. At the end of Scene Two, "he goes completely digital. He leaves his body behind and goes into the system." Maddalena vanishes from the set and sings from an off-stage location …
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Q&A with Tod Machover – “What are you working on now?”
Here are the final questions from New Vilna Review Editor Daniel Levenson's recent interview with composer Tod Machover: NVR: Can you give us a little glimpse of what you might be working on right now? TM: Whenever I finish a project as large and involving as Death and the Powers (which took me about 10 …
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Tod Machover on NPR’s Morning Edition
Tod Machover was interviewed today on NPR's Morning Edition. Tod speaks with host Bob Oakes about Music|Machines, an all-day event that will be held tomorrow (February 5, 2011) at the M.I.T. Media Laboratory. The event features lectures and discussions by such electronic music pioneers and thinkers as Max Mathews, Barry Vercoe, Marvin Minsky, Joe Paradiso, …
Opera of the Future 