Dive into the sound engineering behind Death and the Powers in this article from Bowers & Wilkins' blog site: The Future of Surround Sound at MIT. MIT student Ben Bloomberg explains the audio technology that was developed for the 3D surround sound system that delivers an intense sonic experience for the audience.
NPR Story: Back Stage at A High-Tech Opera
Shannon Mullen of NPR's All Things Considered interviews Tod Machover about Death and the Powers. The interview was broadcast on Friday, October 15, 2010. Listen here.
Death and the Powers Premiere – Video
Check out this footage from the world premiere performance of Death and the Powers. We get to hear audience reactions. Composer Tod Machover describes how everything came together flawlessly - a huge achievement in itself given the sheer complexity of all the technology, lighting and audio, as well as the demands of the opera itself. …
WBUR Q&A with Tod Machover
Check out today's post on the WBUR web site, "Q&A: Opera Of The Future, Starring (What Else?) Robots!" WBUR's Andrea Shea interviewed Tod by email from Monaco about the genesis of Death and the Powers. An interesting read!
Meet the Team – Peter Torpey (Visual Design)
Post by Peter Torpey, M.I.T. Media Laboratory Over the past three years, I’ve played several roles throughout the production of Death and the Powers, working closely with Tod Machover and Alex McDowell to figure out what is necessary and possible to present the story of Simon Powers. From thinking about how to tell the story, …
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Meet the Artists: Sara Heaton (understudy for Miranda)
Soprano Sara Heaton is a semi-finalist in this year’s Competizione dell’opera in Dresden, was a finalist in the 2010 Giulio Gari competition, and a regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera competition in 2008. She had her professional opera debut as Despina in Così fan tutte with the Boston Baroque orchestra, led by conductor Martin Pearlman. …
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Monaco: day 1
It's hard to believe so many things about being in Monaco. The fact that we're staying above the Fairmont Hairpin, the most famous loop of the Monaco Grand Prix, or that we get to live and work every day right along the glistening Mediterranean Sea, or that we're even here in Monaco at all - …
Interview with Matt Checkowski – Media Content Designer
Matt Checkowski is a busy guy. A graphic designer by training, he moved into film by "sneaking in the back door" at a design company in LA called Imaginary Forces, where he spent his time working on various experience design pieces that eventually led him to spend a year creating the dream sequences in Steven …
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Meet the Artists – Karole Armitage (Choreographer)
Choreographer Karole Armitage's role in Death and the Powers was to create the human and technologic gestures and movements that would embody the story and emotion of the opera. Although Karole has worked with as diverse a range of performers as any choreographer - from elite classical ballet dancers to pop stars like Madonna and …
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MIT News: Disembodied Performance
Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers, which features robots as performers, premieres this month. Is this the future of opera? There's a great feature story from the M.I.T. news office today about Death and the Powers. The story provides an excellent overview of the opera and goes into some depth on Tod Machover's vision to …
Opera of the Future 