“Thrilling Adventures as much a triumph as it is a bit of wacky fun.” Aaron Keebaugh, Artfuse 2023
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is a new one-act opera by composer Elena Ruehr and librettist Royce Vavrek, adapted from the steampunk graphic novel written and drawn by Sydney Padua, commissioned, produced, and performed by Guerilla Opera. This comedic new opera features Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, the true-life unsung inventors of the first computer, in an alternative universe where they use their new invention to “fight crime.”
Ada Lovelace was a mathematician, gambler, and proto-programmer, whose writings contained the first ever appearance of general computing theory. Charles Babbage was the eccentric inventor of the “Difference Engine”, an enormous clockwork calculating machine that would have been the first computer, if he had ever finished it.
Ada Lovelace was the first great genius to develop a programming language, and who is still not generally known. By bringing this historical figure to light, this opera demonstrates that there is a history of great scientists that are women.
The project is a collaboration with the Department of Computer Science; the College of Computing; the College of Sciences and Arts; and the Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture. It is part of the celebration of 50 years of computer science at Michigan Tech.
Tickets available at the Rozsa website.