Event details

2 Performances: November 6 AND November 7, 2017.

The Analysing Engine is a new short comic opera set in a University Science Laboratory. Four students have been recruited as test subjects for a marvellous new machine which can measure love between couples to an unprecedented level of accuracy. What could possibly go wrong?

A panel discussion entitled “What’s funny about comic opera?” will take place at 7pm in the theater before each performance featuring the composer and Princeton University Music Professors Wendy Heller, and on November 6, Emeritus Professor Scott Burnham.

This semi-staged performance features a mixed cast of professionals and students including Heather O’Donovan, Bradley King, Brandon Gaines, Shruthi Rajasekar, Hansini Bhaskar, and Sebastian Cox.

Conductor: Gabriel Crouch

Director: Daniel Krane

Lighting: Victoria Davidjohn

Co-sponsored by the Princeton Sound Kitchen, the Department of Music, Princeton University, the Lewis Center for the Arts and David A Gardner ’69 Magic Project.

A note from the composer:

I began this piece in an Atelier class supported by the Music Department and the Lewis Center with performer, director and composer, Rinde Eckert and a group of adventurous students. Together we explored Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. From out of that emerged the story for this piece - The Analysing Engine  - in which four young people are confused through the agency of a Scientist, her assistant and their machine.