Innovative opera looks to the past and the future

University of Huddersfield conducting tutor Ben Crick has drawn parallels between the AI revolution and how machines heralded the industrial revolution two centuries ago in his innovative opera with-a-local-twist, The Last Machine Breaker.

Composed by Huddersfield-born Ben with a libretto by Bradford’s Kamal Khan, the opera tells two stories set centuries apart and portrayed by a cast of just two, who play all four singing roles by using cutting-edge technology.

Green screens were used to make the cast appearing both timelines, one in the early days of the industrial revolution and the other set in 2030. The story and music ask searching questions of the effects that using new technology can have on people, looking back to the Luddite movement, which saw workers wrecking the machinery that they felt had taken their jobs.

Study music at the University of Huddersfield

The opera has a strong local flavour as the Luddites – named after the mythical figure of Ned Ludd – were active in the Huddersfield area. One of the performances saw Ben and the cast perform The Last Machine Breaker in the nearby village of Marsden, scene of several Luddite riots.

And helping to stage the opera, as well as gain invaluable experience of how music can be brought to an audience, were several University of Huddersfield music students who shadowed Ben and the rest of The Last Machine Breaker team.

“We talk a lot about employability, and what I wanted to do with the students who shadowed me, all in their third years, was link them to the profession,” says Ben. “Music is a brutally competitive world, and they need contacts in the industry before they leave us. It's about building bridges out into the industry, and I hope working with us on the opera has helped with that.”

The Last Machine Breaker’s musical look at how AI may replace human labour echoes back to how textile industry workers in the area near to the university felt threatened over 200 years ago.

“The great question for society now is AI, the replacement of labour with AI and how society deals with that. And we've been asking the same questions in the North of England for over 200 years now,” Ben adds.

"If we're going to be a relevant artistic voice now, we need to use those experiences to tell stories about now.

“Our actors played against large avatar versions of themselves, which we prerecorded, on screens and so the infrastructure for each performance was quite complicated so that would be a good experience for our students.

"I think we may be one of the first to try this on this scale, and it was great to bring the technological angle into this ancient art form of opera.”

The Last Machine Breaker was a Bradford Opera Festival commission, and was funded by the Arts Council. It follows on from Ben and the team's Yorkshire dialect version of The Barber of Seville.

Ben also recently conducted the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra on the opening night of the refurbished Bradford Live venue.