THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF LOVELACE AND BABBAGE
Music by Elena Ruehr | Libretto by Royce Vavrek | Graphic novel by Sydney Padua
COMPUTER GENIUSES FIGHT CRIME IN THE MULTIVERSE
Title: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, an opera in three adventures
Composer: Elena Ruehr
Libretto: Royce Vavrek, inspired by the graphic novel by Sydney Padua
Duration: 60min
Instrumentation: 2 sop, ten, bari, 2+ actors, fl, vln, vc, perc
Status: In Development
TOURING INFO
Director: Giselle Ty
Theater Requirements: Black Box or proscenium equivalent
ABOUT THE OPERA
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is a new one-act opera by composer Elena Rueher and librettist Royce Vavrek, adapted from the a steampunk graphic novel written and drawn by Sydney Padua . This comedic new opera features Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, the true-life unsung inventors of the first computer, in an alternative universe where they successfully use their new invention to “fight crime'“.
Ada Lovelace was a mathematician, gambler, and proto-programmer, whose writings contained the first ever appearance of general computing theory. Charles Babbage was the eccentric inventor of the “Difference Engine”, an enormous clockwork calculating machine that would have been the first computer, if he had ever finished it.
Ada Lovelace was the first great genius to develop a programming language, and who is still not generally known. By bringing this historical figure to light, this opera demonstrates that there is a history of great scientists that are women.
In this opera, the sounds of an actual working Difference Engine were recorded in Seattle, WA, and programed into an electronic marimba (MalletKAT). The MalletKAT is an instrument similar to a synthesizer, but played with mallets by a percussionist.
ARTISTS
COMPOSER
With work described as “sumptuously scored and full of soaring melodies” (The New York Times), and “unspeakably gorgeous” (Gramophone), American composer Elena Ruehr is known for her lyrical and rhythmically vibrant music. Called “a composer to watch” by Opera News, Ruehr won an Opera America grant to write her opera “Crafting the Bonds”. She also received a Guggenheim award to compose her opera Cassandra in the Temples for the Grammy Award winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth. Her acclaimed opera Toussaint Before the Spirits (Arsis Records, 2005) was called “an illuminating historical musical fantasy” by Opera News. The Boston Globe said Toussaint “had the audience on its feet, cheering, whistling, and applauding…combines a lyrical outpouring energized by motor rhythms that never become mechanical…compelling, emotional, theatrical.” She is also well known for her vocal works in the cantata form. Gramophone magazine called her cantata Averno “a marvel of delicacy”. Her cantata Eve was reviewed by the Boston Globe as “ a reflective fable… unusually, effectively clement.” Ruehr is also a prolific composer in orchestral and chamber music and she is particularly well known for her string quartets. Her music is recorded on the Avie, Acis and Albany labels. (Read more at elenaruehr.org)
LIBRETTIST
Royce Vavrek is a Canada-born, Brooklyn-based librettist and lyricist who has been called “the indie Hofmannsthal” (The New Yorker) a “Metastasio of the downtown opera scene” (The Washington Post), “an exemplary creator of operatic prose” (The New York Times), and “one of the most celebrated and sought after librettists in the world” (CBC Radio). His opera “Angel’s Bone” with composer Du Yun was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
With composer Missy Mazzoli he wrote “Song from the Uproar,” premiered by Beth Morrison Projects in 2012, and subsequently seen in multiple presentations around the country. Their second opera, an adaptation of Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves,” premiered at Opera Philadelphia, co-commissioned by Beth Morrison Projects, and directed by James Darrah to critical acclaim in September of 2016. The work won the 2017 Music Critics Association of North America award for Best New Opera and was nominated for Best World Premiere at the 2017 International Opera Awards. A new production premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in the summer of 2019, produced by Scottish Opera and Opera Ventures, helmed by Tony Award-winning director Tom Morris and earned star Sydney Mancasola a coveted Herald Angel Award for her performance. Their next opera, an adaptation of Karen Russell’s short story “Proving Up,” was commissioned and presented by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and The Miller Theatre in 2018, was a finalist for the MCANA Best New Opera Award of that year. They are currently developing a grand opera for Opera Philadelphia and the Norwegian National Opera based on an original story by two-time Governor General’s Award-winning playwright Jordan Tannahill, as well as an adaptation of George Saunders’ Booker Prize-winning novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” for The Metropolitan Opera. (roycevavrek.com)
NOVELIST
Sydney Padua is a graphic novelist, animator, and filmmaker. She grew up partly in Mexico City, partly on the Canadian prairie, and partly in Narnia. She studied theater at the University of Alberta and animation at Sheridan College in Toronto. Her visual effects work includes both hand-drawn and computer-generated animation and appears in such films as The Iron Giant, The Jungle Book, and The Lion King; she is currently a lead animator on Mufasa: The Lion King. She started drawing her cult webcomic The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by accident in 2009 when a joke blog post took on a life of its own. It eventually became a best-selling graphic novel, winner of the British Society for the History of Mathematics Neumann Prize and nominated for two Eisner Awards. Padua lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her husband. She is beside herself with joy that The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is now an opera, and considers this the greatest thing that could possibly happen to anybody.
Website: sydneypadua.com
DIRECTOR
Giselle Ty is a London-based stage director who specializes in experimental, interdisciplinary and site-specific work. She has directed productions for Boston Lyric Opera, Center for Contemporary Opera at National Sawdust, New York University Tisch School of Drama, Harvard University Early Music Society, Simpson College, and Houston Grand Opera (HGOco). Engagements as associate and assistant director include collaborations with the American Repertory Theatre, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Festival, Opera Boston, Gotham Chamber Opera, Icelandic Opera, L’Opéra de Bordeaux, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
In addition to directing theater and opera productions, Ty creates original work that sits at the intersection of live performance and installation. In 2015, she conceived and directed All at Once Upon A Time (Or Variations on a Theme of Disappearing) for the Peabody Essex Museum’s Gardner-Pingree House. She also was granted a residency with New Georges’ Theatre to develop Invitation to an Empty Room, an unplugged happening for total strangers.
She began her theatrical life by studying with and assisting former resident directors and company members at the American Repertory Theatre. She later trained in Suzuki/Viewpoints with Anne Bogart and SITI Company, as well as in clown/movement at L’École Jacques Lecoq in Paris. Before diving into the theater field, Ty studied art history and orchestral trumpet at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL.
In 2023, she will be collaborating with the London-based music collective, Tangram, as stage director for a program at LSO St. Luke’s, and as a writer and text deviser for Alex Ho’s anti-opera, Untold, which will be performed this spring at Muziektheater Transparant in Ghent and at the O. Festival in Rotterdam.
SUPPORT AND AWARDS
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is supported by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), MIT Music,and Theater Arts and by a grant from Cambridge Arts, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
