The Turing Project
In honor of the Turing Centennial, American
Lyric Theater is very excited to commission an operatic exploration of the life
and death of Alan Turing from composer Justine F. Chen and librettist David
Simpatico.
An iconoclastic thinker and social misfit born
to the Edwardian upper class in 1912, Turing was a simple man of extraordinary
abilities. His achievements include creating the first universal computer;
breaking the Nazi U-Boat code, which proved crucial to the success of the
allied forces in WWII; and creating the field of Artificial Intelligence and
the future of digital, binary reality. Yet, despite the many benefits Turing’s
ideas bestowed upon humanity, the British government charged him with Gross
Indecency for the crime of being homosexual, and punished him with chemical
castration. A year after his sentence was carried out, Turing committed suicide
at the age of 41, eating an apple laced with cyanide - according to the
official coroner’s report. Many speculate that his apparent suicide was
inspired by his life-long love of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. But
others don’t think his death was suicide at all.
“The opera imagines the man inside the legend,
the unique perspective he had on the universe, the public and unashamed view he
had of his own homosexuality, and the impact he had upon the future of
civilization,” explain David and Justine. “Vital to this examination are the
roles and various meanings of ‘intelligence’, ‘memory’ and ‘passing’. For now,
we’re calling it THE TURING PROJECT, as there are many titles floating in the
air.
“The retention of stored, reusable memory proved crucial to the
development of the computer, and is similarly crucial to the telling of
Turing’s story; memory collides with time and creates a canvas that flows back
and forth in time and reality. By looking at specific memories of his life, we
understand this iconoclastic genius as someone trapped within a system that
fosters heroes only to decimate them if they go out of step with the view of
‘normal’ society.
“Music, which has privileged access to our motor
system, has the power to conjure up and inflate memories, to bend time, and to
retell decades in a moment as we touch upon the milestones of his life. We are
examining scenes musically from the full range of his life, from the intimacy
of personal, private moments, to the heroic contributions played out against a
global stage of war and impending doom, as well as moments of mythic genius
that unlocked essential secrets of the universe and the future of technology.
“This piece is relevant today not only for
filling in the missing gaps of a public memory that has been purposefully wiped
clean, but also because the same institutionalized homophobic attitudes faced
by Turing continue to threaten the lives and freedom of gay men and women
across the globe today. We live in Turing’s world, but still face the same
prejudice that brought him down. This is an opera about the power of love, and
the potential within us all to live truly and fully as we are.”
American Lyric Theater is honored to commission
this new opera from David and Justine – to share Turing’s story with a
generation who should know more about this incredible man, and to always remind
us that many people still cannot be who they are without facing incredible
persecution.
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