Death and the Powers (The Robots’ Opera)

Machover, Tod, composer. Death and the Powers. Opera. Robert Pinsky, librettist. Randy Weiner and Robert Pinsky, story. Diane Paulus, credited director. Alex McDowell, production designer. MIT Media Lab, "Visionary Technology." World-premiere in Monaco, September 2010. US-premiere American Repertory Theater, Boston, and Chicago Opera Theater, March and April 2011.[1]

MIT website tells us Death and the Powers was

developed at the MIT Media Lab. The one-act, full evening work tells the story of Simon Powers, a rich and powerful businessman and inventor, who wishes to perpetuate his existence beyond the decay of his physical being. Reaching the end of his life, Powers faces the question of his legacy: “When I die, what will I leave behind? What can I control? Can technology extend my limits?” Using his vast resources, Powers ‘downloads’ himself into his environment, turning every object in his surroundings – books, furniture, walls, etc. – into a living version of himself, called The System.[2]

The American Repertory site notes that this opera uses "specially designed technology and an expressively animated stage, including a chorus of robots and a musical chandelier. Machover, called 'America’s most wired composer' by the L.A. Times, distinctively blends technological and artistic finesse to create a score that is passionately inventive, yet filled with arching melodic lines."[3]

In addition to mentioning VALIS, the SF Encyclopedia on line notes "Another opera, Death and the Powers (2010) concerns a businessman (the titular Powers) who turns himself into a Cyborg to cheat death. It was first staged with twelve free functioning robots on stage, supplied by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. [AR]."[4]

Machover on YouTube on his opera, as of April 2023, here.[5]

Cf. and contrast theme of uploaded/downloaded personalities (a "separable soul" motif) in such works as the non-fiction anthology Intelligence Unbound: The Future of Uploaded and Machine Minds, the TV series Upload, and such fiction as We Are Legion (We Are Bob), Permutation City, and the "vastened" personalities of dead people in "gigabyte space" in Frederik Pohl's The Annals of the Heechee (1987). Cf. and contrast also the idea of a cybernetic environment in the X-Files episodes " "Rm9sbG93ZXJz"" and "Ghost in the Machine," and elsewhere: some of our citations listed here[6]. Rich men seeking immortality also a common motif.

Todd Mason, June 2004 for Machover generally; RDE, finishing, 20Ap23