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“The Tale Of The Big Computer” will be staged as an opera in the Reactor Hall

KTH Reactor Hall, R1 with Leif Handberg upper middle in the picture.
KTH Reactor Hall, R1. Leif Handberg, Associate Professor in Media Technology and Director of R1, the KTH Reactor Hall, upper middle in the picture. Photo: Jann Lipka.
Published Feb 08, 2022

A funding campaign is soon to be launched, with ads in social media soliciting contributions for an opera based on Hannes Alfvén’s book, “The Tale Of The Big Computer”. Leif Handberg, Associate Professor in Media Technology and Director of R1, the KTH Reactor Hall, could you tell us about the background to this and how people can contribute?

Leif Handberg in R1, the KTH Reactor Hall.
eif Handberg, Associate Professor in Media Technology and Director of R1, the KTH Reactor Hall.

“We want to show that KTH as a University of Technology can also create culture. And it feels great to be able to combine this with paying homage to KTH Nobel Laureate Hannes Alfvén. The project was started in 2020 when we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Alfvén’s Nobel Prize. As this is not really a direct part of KTH’s core activities, we decided to seek some external contributions as well, and many of these have come from our external partners. But we still need a bit more help.

“I then had the idea that we could invite personnel, alumni, students and the general public to make donations towards a bar of the opera. There is a form with a QR code on opera website  and all you need to do is scan this and approve the amount in Swish which will then be transferred to the opera account at KTH. You can either contribute to fund onebar individually, or with up to four people together. You will then receive a certain bar number and your name(s) on the opera donation wall. The President has already booked bar number one.”

What is the opera about?

“The libretto is based on Alfvén’s novel, “The Tale Of The Big Computer”, published in 1966. In the book, Alfvén predicts how computers and systems will take over more and more in society.

“It is a chamber opera with five singers, five musicians, a dancer, and a few YuMi robots from ABB on stage. The singers and musicians will use the whole of the Reactor Hall as their stage. The Skandia organ will naturally be featured and heard, but nobody will be at the keyboard. The organ will be controlled by voice and gestures instead.”

You are the project manager, who will be the artistic director?

Carl and Åsa Unander-Scharin,
Carl and Åsa Unander-Scharin are artistic directors of the opera.

“Carl and Åsa Unander-Scharin. I got to know them when they staged Opera Mecatronica, a production with dancing robots in the Reactor Hall in 2010. Åsa is a choreographer and a Professor in Music, Media and Theatre at Luleå University of Technology. Carl Unander-Scharin is an opera singer and composer who defended his PhD thesis “Extending Opera”, here at KTH in 2015. He is a Professor at Karlstad University.

“They work together as a team and have taken charge of all the major tasks in this production: writing a new libretto, the musical score, choreography, direction, and scenography.

“Vadstena-Akademien are helping us out with the production.”

When is the opening night and how many performances will there be?

“We aim to do around seventeen performances with the opening night planned for 1 December. Sigbritt Karlsson will complete her time as President at the end of November and it will be a bit of a leaving present from the President to KTH. It also means the new President will attend the opening night of the KTH opera on the first day here.”

More information on the opera and how you can support it.

Håkan Soold

About “The Tale Of The Great Computer”

The “Tale Of The Great Computer” was written by 1970 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Hannes Alfvén, and was published in 1966 under the pen name of Olof Johannesson (however the 1986 edition was published under his own name). In an article for Wikipedia, Handberg describes the book as “… an evolutionary story set in a distant future, where humans have been reduced to an evolutionary step on the road to a wise and all-knowing computer”. Alfvén divided his working time between KTH and the University of California, Berkeley, and the book, which has been published under various different titles in English (The Great Computer. The Vision, The Tale Of The Big Computer, and The End Of Man?) has since become a cult classic in Silicon Valley.

When composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl, whose CV includes a successful opera based on Harry Martinsson’s epic poem Aniara, was hospitalised, a friend brought him a copy of the book. After reading it, Blomdahl was fired with enthusiasm and contacted Alfvén to say he wanted to make an opera based on the book. Alfvén initially said no, he felt the book was far too abstract. However, Blomdahl insisted and a libretto was developed. The idea was for the opera to be performed at the Royal Swedish Opera and at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. But Blomdahl passed away before he was able to complete the work and the idea of turning the book into an opera had lain dormant until now.

The KTH staging of an opera based on the book was initially planned for December 2020 to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of Alfvén being awarded his Nobel Prize. However, the pandemic put a stop to that and the première is now planned for 1 December 2022.

The Opera, “The Tale Of The Great Computing Machine” will be staged in the KTH Reactor Hall, R1. The opera is a co-production with Vadstena-Akedemien.

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Last changed: Feb 08, 2022