The Monkey Robot Opera is ostensibly the result of a collaboration between Dylan Thomas and Igor Stravinsky. In 1953, Dylan Thomas was about to travel to Los Angeles to begin work on a libretto for a new opera to be scored by Stravinsky. History would not have it, however; Thomas died in New York in November of that year. This is the setting for the opera. The stillborn collaboration is recreated within the opera, as it develops in the poet's imagination in the last days of his life.

In the opera, Thomas conceives of his work with Stravinsky as the result of an large number of monkeys pounding away on typewriters. This collective authorship is represented onstage as a thirteen-member percussive chorus of robotic monkeys armed with typewriters.

This work is second in a series titled "Imaginary Operas". The first, We the Poor, You the Rich, Pepe the Bull, took the form of a collection of 15 different posters for an opera that never existed. This poster exhibit was shown at AS220 in 1998.

The work is structured in twenty six scenes over four acts, which cover the last thirteen days of the poet's life (beginning with his birthday on October 27, 1953). The titles of the 26 scenes are also an acrostic, whose first letters correspond to the QWERTY typewriter keyboard (QWERTYUIOP...etc...). Some of the text is based on Dylan Thomas' letters and the book "Dylan Thomas in America" by John Malcolm Brinnin.

Photos and music will be available here, as soon as they're done!

Funding for this project was graciously provided by the LEF Foundation.