Conference noted::sf

    	I hate writing Notes without the full details, but I did want
    to report - in the hopes that someone can fill in these details -
    that I saw an article about an SF opera in a circa 1960 LIFE magazine,
    complete with a color photograph of the set, which I remember showed
    the crew on this ship heading off into the depths of the Universe
    without any control of their ship.  They also had a computer which
    looked like a DNA molecule.
    
    	Larry
    

    	The opera by Glass is based on Doris Lessings "The Making of
    the Agent from Planet 9".  (Title is only approximate, it's been
    at least 4 years since I read it.  And as I checked it out of the
    library, I can't check my library to verify.)  I heard a few excerpts
    of the music on NPR(?) a couple of months ago(?).  Like a lot of
    Glass's work it uses a lot of weird droning vocal harmonics (at
    least the part I heard).
                                                                    
    tlh

    It's THE MAKING OF THE REPRESENTATIVE FOR PLANET 8 (the
    fourth book in Lessing's "Canopus in Argos" series).
    
    --- jerry

    
    
    Someone recently wrote an opera based on _VALIS_ by Philip Dick.
    Got good reviews.
    
    I've heard of another opera called _Anataria_ or something close
    to that. Written in Swedish, no less. Dates back to the 20's.
    

    Philip Glass has also written a (possibly) more recent opera called
    something like "1000 airplanes on the roof". This is what was being
    discussed on NPR. I don't think this is the one based on the Lessing
    novel.
    
    Tamzen

    re .4 and .1 - I thought the Danish SF opera was called "Aniara",
    and that it dated from the '50s/'60s rather than the '20s.  I remember
    a production of it, and my impression of it at the time was that
    it was contemporary.    
    
    len.
    

    
    ref .6:
    
    Sounds like the one. I probably first heard of it in the early/mid
    '60s, and might be confusing the date with _Metropolis_.
    
    E.

    Re .6 (len):
    
    Yes, _Aniara_ it is, by Carl Blomdahl.  I have a copy somewhere
    on two LP records.  It used electronic music for the "computer"
    that was a sort of mother figure for the passengers.
    
    The story is supposed to take place on a spacecraft leaving a
    radioactive-after-nuclear-war Earth that is to shuttle survivors
    to new lands, over generations.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    The opera version of "Valis" was written by Todd Machover, who is 
    presently at MIT'S Media Lab.  My housemate bought the CD; it's 
    interesting.  Not being familiar with opera or contemporary 
    classical music, I can't say much more than that.
    /jlr

    Philip Glass also wrote "Einstein on the Beach," an extremely long
    opera which I guess might be called marginal science fiction.  Its
    central figure is a scientist, after all, and his thought experiments,
    especially the near-lightspeed train, figure in the performance, so
    there's a science component.  The hard part is the fiction component,
    because there isn't really a plot.  The whole thing is very surreal.
    Example:
    
    "I dreamed I was walking through this prematurely air-conditioned
    supermarket, and they were selling these Fourth-of-July hats, in red
    and yellow and green, and I wasn't tempted to buy one, but it reminded
    me that I had been avoiding the beach."
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    	Actually, Tamzen, I sure it was "Planet 8" that was reviewed
    in the program that I listened to.  1) They interviewed Doris Lessing
    as well as Glass and 2) I wouldn't have paid attention to/remembered
    it otherwise.  Perhaps there were two programs?
    
    	Thanks for the correct title, Jerry.  I remembered it was
    "Representative" rather than "Agent" in the middle of the night last
    night, but I still wouldn't have gotten the title quite right.
    
    tlh
    

    There's a fairly lengthy review of Glass's "1000 Airplanes on the
    Roof" (or whatever) in the Wall Street Journal today, Friday, October
    14.  (I didn't expect to want to remember the details so I won't
    misquote now!)  Sounds interesting and it's supposed to be on tour,
    so it might even show up in Colorado!!!  One interesting note is
    that the main character, "M", is played alternately by a male and
    female!  It doesn't matter to the story.  The reviewer liked the
    show a lot and it sounded like a multi-media event.  I'd love to
    go, so if it's in the Boston area sometime, somebody post it!!!
    
    Sherry

    
    Wierd coincidence department:
    
    There was an article on the opera _VALIS_ in the Boston Globe yesterday.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers
Path: decwrl!labrea!rutgers!buengf.bu.edu!griffin
Subject: Philip K.Dick & VALIS
Posted: 2 Dec 88 16:47:02 GMT
Organization: 
  
    For all the people out there who are Philip K. Dick fans, I have
some interesting news concerning the adaptation of Dick's work for
multimedia opera. That's right, an opera based on _Valis_ that was
written by Tod Machover who is a professor at the MIT Media Lab. I had
never read Dick, and had only heard of him through the award that's
named after him, until I heard the opera. I've been searching for a
copy of _Valis_ (the book) for quite some time now, with no success.
Is this book out of print ?  It seems as thought the entire catalog of
Dick's work is either out of print or hard to find. The only titles I
have found are _Radio_Free_Albemuth_ and DADOES (Do Androids......),
and I have heard that _The_Man _In_The_High_Castle_ is in print as well. 

    Getting back to the opera, it really isn't your typical Italian or
German opera where the stage is littered with corpses at the end of
the show, and your ears hurt from 4 hours of soprano soli. No, this is
a modern day opera which uses mostly electronic instruments ( Tod is
the co-director of the electronic music studio). The CD (what, you
listen to records ???) comes with a  64 page booklet which contains a
detailed synopsis of the story, a full libretto, and technical notes
on how the computer music technology was used in the realization of
this work. The opera was comissioned by the Pompidou center in Paris,
and it was premiered there for its tenth anniversary. It's getting
great reviews in the music world, and I was just wondering what SF
fans think of it. Another musician who did an album based on Dick, is
a bassist named Stu Hamm, and the album is called
_Radio_Free_Albemuth_ . This disk is a bit more on the "musician's
musician"  side ( Stu Hamm has Monster Chops!!), and is more inspired
by Dick than based on Dick. Anyhow, save your nickels and dimes and
get a copy of Tod Machover's _Valis_ opera, available on Bridge
Records BCD 9007 . 

    I wonder, are thre any other mixed media works based on science
fiction authors, or in collaboration with them ? In the old days (
before television) artists of every sort would read the great authors
of their time, and take the ideas of the writers and incorporate them
into aesthetic principles and apply these principles to their art. I
think that SF and other genres of speculative fiction are among the
great movements produced in the last eighty years, and that it's time
for the rest of the art world to take notice. OK. enough preaching,
let's see if we can throw Peter Gabriel and Harlan Ellison into a room
and........ 
 
##########################  "It's crackers to put the
# Bobby Maruvada         #   rozzer on the dropsy side
# [email protected]  #   down."
##########################         JDM

    "No great man ever complains of want of opportunity."

                      - Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Sorry to take so long to post this note, but in the Guardian newspaper
    here in the UK on Monday, 7 November, there was an article about
    the Philip Glass/Doris Lessing opera The Making of the Representative
    from Planet 8.  The European premier was the following Wednesday,
    9 November, in London.  The article is quite extensive, and I
    unfortunately do not have time to type it in (even if I had got
    permission from the paper to do so!!), so if anyone would like a
    copy, please mail me on:-
    
    NOT001::ALLEN
    
         OR
    
    MICHELLE ALLEN @NOT
    
    and I'll send you a copy via the internal mail.
    
    Regards,
    
    Michelle Allen