Video game opera PermaDeath

The world premiere of Dan’s new video game opera PermaDeath takes place at Boston’s Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater from September 27-29. PermaDeath is the “intrepid and artistically ambitious” (Opera magazine) Jacobs’s most technologically sophisticated work to date, requiring a host of technical collaborators, and focuses on a central character suffering from ALS, which required an entirely different kind of collaboration and research. The libretto was co-written with Jacobs’s son, Pirate Epstein, founder of the video game company SqueePlay and a former New England Halo champion. New York-based opera director Sam Helfrich, who helmed the first performances in New York of Péter Eötvös’s Angels in America at New York City Opera last year, directs; and conducting Visconti’s score is Daniela Candillari, who has worked with Bang on a Can Opera and recently conducted Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Performers include sopranos Rachele Gilmore and Amy Shoremount-Obra; mezzos Sarah Coit and Shirin Eskandani; countertenor Patrick Dailey; tenor Stephen Carroll; and baritone Josh Quinn and bass Christopher Carbin, who were both involved in workshops of Jacobs’s last opera, REV. 23. Jacobs’s longtime collaborator Zane Pihlstrom serves as set and costume designer. PermaDeath is produced by White Snake Projects.

Download the PermaDeath app to your smartphone.