We've been inundated by press and reviews this week! It's hard to keep up, so we've collected those from the past couple of days here. Death and the Powers has one more Boston performance this Friday night (March 25) before moving on to Chicago for a one-week run (April 2-10). - Updated March 24, 2011 …
Continue reading "Opening Week Press on Death and the Powers"
The Boston Globe's review of Death and the Powers should generate some conversation! Critic Jeremy Eichler offered high praise for most aspects of the production: "Much of Machover’s music, his soaring vocal writing, and especially some of his sculpted electronic soundscapes, are highly imaginative and quite compelling. Robert Pinsky’s libretto is often deft, and the …
Bowers & Wilkins put up this post that gives you a chance to hear some of the music from Tod Machover's most recent work, "Spheres and Splinters", debuted in Aldeburgh and London last November. The video is a tad confusing because it mixes in footage from other performers and composers at TEDx Aldeburgh, but it …
What an incredible weekend! Death and the Powers opened on Friday night at the Cutler Majestic Theater in the epicenter of Boston's theater district. The air was electric with anticipation. The audience was studded with an only-in-Boston constellation of artists, intellectuals and übergeeks. Spotted in the crowd were M.I.T. President Susan Hockfield, Harvard Provost Steven …
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 …
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 …
Journalist Chris Dahlen hung out in the Cutler Majestic Theater during rehearsals of Death and the Powers last August, just before the set was shipped off to Monaco for the opera's world premiere. His story in the current Boston Phoenix reports in detail on the numerous technological innovations in the opera. It's an entertaining account …
Continue reading "Boston Phoenix – “High tech meets high anxiety”"
Which film robot is the favorite of Death and the Powers composer Tod Machover? What came first in the creation of the opera - the technology or the concept? And where does baritone James Maddalena, who sings the role of Simon Powers, go when he disappears from the stage? How would Tod characterize his music? …
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 …
Continue reading "BBC World Service chats with Tod Machover"
The distinguished music critic Andrew Porter has published his review in Opera Magazine of Death and the Powers, which he saw at its Monaco premiere last September. Porter has followed composer Tod Machover's work for decades and brings a wealth of knowledge about Tod's work and the history of opera generally to this review. In …
Continue reading "Andrew Porter reviews Death and the Powers"
Opera of the Future 