Soft Opening | The Glance: A Laptopera
Date and Time
- Thursday, Feb 19, 2026 6:30pm
Location
836M
836 Montgomery St
Details
The Glance: A Laptopera is an operatic reinterpretation of the Orpheus myth for laptop orchestra and live voices that integrates electronic instrument design, composition, choreography, and visual art. The work explores themes of surveillance, control, witnessing, care, and human connection, linking ancient narratives with contemporary technologies. Through bespoke, body-centered electronic instruments, the project uses embodied performance to investigate how trust and love are shaped—and strained—within our modern technological landscape.
Created by composer Anne Hege in collaboration with electronic instrument builders Daniel Iglesia and Curtis Ullerich; vocalists Sidney Chen, Carmina Escobar, and Michele Kennedy; art director Kim Anno; and choreographer Carrie Ahern, The Glance foregrounds instrument design as a core expressive and narrative force. Performers engage with custom-built looping, motion-tracking, and architectural sound instruments that physically shape sound, movement, and character. In development during their residency at 836M through iterative rehearsals and interactive workshops, the opera culminates in a full premiere on May 29–31, 2026, at ODC Theater, offering audiences an immersive, multisensory experience in which sound, body, and story evolve together.
February 19 at 6:30 PM | Soft Opening: Open Rehearsal with vocalist Sidney Chen (Hades)
In this opening event, composer Anne Hege works with vocalist Sidney Chen (Hades) to refine Hades Orb—a motion-tracked hoop that filters sound in real time. Together, Hege and Chen shape nuanced interactions between Chen’s vocal line and the Orb’s live, responsive processing. Audiences are invited to witness how subtle shifts in movement and phrasing generate character, intimacy, and connection in a new opera for laptop orchestra and live voices.
About Anne Hege (Creator, Co-Librettist, Composer, Instrument Designer):
Anne Hege creates musical worlds that invite an awareness of and attention to the body and our present moment. In her work as a composer, vocalist, conductor, instrument builder, and scholar, she explores the roots of musicality in the intersection of ensemble interaction, technology, embodiment, and expression. Her works have been performed by So Percussion, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Laptop Orchestra, Stanford Laptop Orchestra, Google Mobile Devices Ensemble, loadbang, Ensemble Klang, NOW Ensemble, Voce in Tempore, Newspeak, Piedmont East Bay Children’s Chorus, Resound Ensemble, and Volti SF.