Looking At You
- Ana De Archuleta
- Jun 30, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Music by: Kamala Sankaram
Libretto by: Rob Handel
Duration: 82 minutes
Premiered: HERE Arts Center and OOT- with additional support from Experiments in Opera.
Looking At You is an immersive Opera that explores the digital age. It explores how easy it is to surveil others Via the internet and Social media Apps.
"Mr. Handel’s artful, well-paced libretto and Ms. Sankaram’s lively music-theater-infused scorelimn the tale of Dorothy, an ambitious engineer who invents an app, CheckUOut, for Rix, the techcompany that she has just joined. It’s supposed to be a relationship aid, as in letting you find outright away if that cute guy at the bar is someone you should date—but it is actually a powerfuldata miner that instantly collects and analyzes everything the internet knows about that person.Meanwhile, Dorothy’sboyfriend, Ethan (an Edward Snowden figure), has just released 1.7 millionsecret documents, the product of surveillance by 13 governments."- Wall Street Journal Review Heidi Waleson
FORCES
Singers:
Mezzo-soprano,
Tenor
Two Baritones
Two Sopranos
Orchestration:
Piano
Alto Saxophone
Tenor Saxophone
Baritone Saxophone
Chorus of Singing Tablet Computers
Pre-recorded Electronics
Reviews
“The accompanying piano and three saxophones sound like a much more varied ensemble; they, along with the computer-generated backup chorus that emanates from the tablets on the tables, give the whole piece an insistent bass beat and murmuring background that contribute to the overall feeling of foreboding….an absorbing, frightening
whole.”
-Heid Waleson, The Wall Street Journal
“Sankaram’s score is an eclectic mélange of jazz, techno, R&B, and hip-hop. The beats, melodies, and colors she creates are fun and infectious… Together Sankaram and Handel create a superbly paced story and a three-dimensional world that moves far beyond shallow criticism and caricature.”
-Stephen Jude Tietjen, Opera News
MEDIA
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