The world has ended. The only survivors are ORITO, a hyper-realistic Bunraku puppet, and KUKA, an industrial robot. Apparently, without memories or context, they attempt to construct a new reality. They search for meaning in a ruined world where nothing seems to remain. Digging through the rubble of sound and memory, they try to reconstruct…
This new robot opera by Ulrike Quade Company, in collaboration with opera director Lisenka Heijboer-Castañon and composer Stephanie Pan, draws inspiration from Orito, a character in David Mitchell’s novel “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet”. In the book, Orito is a midwife and the only non-prostitute allowed into the Dutch East India Company trading…