Composer and inventor Tod Machover runs the "Opera of the Future" group at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Mass. and creates instruments and robots that transform the way music is performed. His latest futuristic opus, "Death and the Powers," is a 90-minute one-act opera, with libretto by Robert Pinsky, directed by Diane Paulus. It incorporates cutting-edge robotics, and uses a technology Machover dubs "disembodied performance" that requires its star, baritone James Maddalena, to act out almost the entire program out of sight or earshot of the audience -- even while a high-tech translation of his performance appears on the stage. See more about this robotic and music combination.
