updated 9:30 a.m.  27.Apr.99.PDT
The Marriage of Tech and Opera
by David Kushner

3:00 a.m.  23.Apr.99.PDT
It's opera. It's electronica. It's ... electropera.

It's Resurrection, the latest work from Tod Machover, an MIT Media Lab professor and composer who continues to explore the high-tech future of opera.

The new work, which premieres on 23 April at the Houston Grand Opera, uses Machoverís digitally based "hyperinstruments" to bring Leo Tolstoy's 19th-century love story into a contemporary, operatic setting. "Iím interested in taking things that are already kind of wonderful in the music world," he says, "and somehow try to drag them into the 21st century."

This mission has taken Machover through an assortment of genre-busting projects during his career at MIT. In 1988, he transformed Philip K. Dick's paranoiac proto-cyberpunk novel, Valis, into what The New York Times called "arguably the most famous achievement in operatic science fiction."

Machover developed "hyperinstruments" -- intuitive, electronic musical devices designed specially for live performances - for artists including Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Gabriel, and Prince. A "hyperchair" designed for magicians Penn and Teller could be "played" by simply passing a hand between a set of sensors.

Machover worked with more than 50 MIT colleagues in 1996 to create Brain Opera, an ambitious hyperinstrumental performance that relied on audience members to create spontaneous, electronic music.

For Resurrection, Machover has relegated hyperinstruments to the background. On stage, a cast of 60 singers will perform the story of a doomed affair between a prince and a prostitute. The orchestra's score will be enhanced by what Machover calls "super orchestration."

Throughout the performance, two electronic keyboards will be used to augment the acoustic instrumentation. Simultaneously, a third keyboardist will send digital instructions to alter the other keyboards' timbres. The result, says Machover, is a blend of barely discernible acoustic and electronic sounds.
To further enhance these layers, a technician/musician in the back of the hall will be operating what Machover calls a multimodal mixer. Developed specifically for Resurrection at MIT, the MMM attempts to reconcile the discrepancy between digital music and analog mixing consoles.

Instead of requiring a mixer to awkwardly twiddle knobs during a performance, the MMM uses a friendlier interface -- fuzzy sensors embedded in a polyurethane base - that looks something like a Tribble on Star Trek. To achieve a more subtle and emotional sound, the mixing operator can gesture softly along the MMM to lighten a mood or squeeze tightly to intensify it.

"We want to be able to conduct a palette of sound like a conductor conducts an orchestra," Machover said.

Special software called Hum was programmed to facilitate the musical production. By allowing rapid prototyping of musical signals, Hum -- similar to hyperinstrument hardware -- makes it easier to manipulate an audio environment. Machover and his colleagues are currently looking at ways to apply Hum to childrenís toys.

Machover's brand of technology is unique to the Houston Grand Opera. But Patrick Summers, HGO's music director, believes that the electronics are so integrated into the performance that even the most seasoned opera buff would fail to discern the digital presence. More importantly, he said, these new tools, though admittedly unfamiliar to him, are vital for the growth of opera into the next millennium.

"We simply cannot bury our heads in the sand and think we can keep producing the same 20 operas every year," Summers said. "If more of our activity was about new sounds and new music, wouldn't we be better when we come back to Madam Butterfly?"

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