New Opera Raises Timely Questions On AI

A brand-new radical opera aims to address the biggest existential question of our times by drawing on lessons from Yorkshire’s revolutionary past.

The acclaimed Yorkshire composer Ben Crick was inspired by true stories from the Industrial Revolution in 1812 to draw striking parallels with the current AI revolution in The Last Machine Breaker, An Opera on Luddites, AI and Revolution.

The new work is a Bradford Opera Festival commission, funded by the Arts Council, that follows on from the team’s phenomenal success staging a Yorkshire dialect take on The Barber of Seville.

Aiming to entice new audiences to the artform, it tells a uniquely Northern story that poses a timely question: will progress be humanity’s salvation or its downfall?

Crick, who has a reputation for composing innovative classical music that tells the stories of the North, says it’s his most personal project to date. It has been five years in development.

Ben said: “We’re asking ourselves the same questions the Luddites asked, this time about AI replacing our labour market. This idea that the North is a centre of industry lives large in the common consciousness, from the Industrial Revolution to the Northern Powerhouse. The North should absolutely be front and centre to answer these existential questions about AI and the future.”

The Last Machine Breaker tells two stories set in two different timelines. The first, performed live on stage, is set in 2030, focussed on tech entrepreneur Eva who creates a humanoid AI, Adam, capable of thought, emotion, and desire (Crick says Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was influenced by the Luddites). The other set in 1813, is projected digitally with the action, telling the story of Luddite leader George Mellor as he faces the gallows.

The stories converge asking urgent questions on the politics of progress and cost of innovation.

Crick has been a BBC music fellow, founded the Skipton Building Society Camerata, and in 2022, re-booted the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra which disbanded in the 1950s – an orchestra loved in its heyday by Alan Bennett and David Hockney.

Opera has the power to convey this story with a greater emotional depth and immediacy that is hard to rival in any other art form.Ben Crick
One of the opera’s performances will take place at The North of England Centre for Music & Arts in Marsden considered the birthplace of the Luddites, where the machines, and the Enoch hammers that broke them, were made.

Ben said: “I'm from Huddersfield. I'm steeped in this story from my youngest memories. This is all activity that happened within walking distance from when I was born.”

The propulsive score is composed by Crick with the libretto written by Kamal Kaan (Bangla Bantams, Perfume), and directed by Alex Chisholm.

Alex Chisholm said: “"This opera is about the Luddites and about now: who gets to benefit from technology and who gets to pay? Ben and Kamal's piece tells an important Northern story - pushing forward what opera can do, and who gets to experience it."

The hope is the pertinent AI-themes will also bring opera to a younger audience. Performances will be in accessible, community spaces with affordable tickets.

Ben said: “I always argue that classical music is an accessible art form. Let’s not leave it in the ownership of the elite. Opera should be topical, it should be creating works that are relevant, not trying to repurpose works from the past all the time.”

He uses the example of Mozart turning The Marriage of Figaro, a play written in 1778 which was banned for addressing class privilege, into a 1786 opera to get past the censors.

He adds: “Opera has the power to convey this story with a greater emotional depth and immediacy that is hard to rival in any other art form.”

The creative team behind the opera will also host a mini-symposium on 11 November at Mind the Gap in Leeds inviting artists, creatives, and technologists, to take part in a discussion panel.

Ben adds: “AI poses questions we all have to ask ourselves. It’s here, and it’s coming. It will create Art and get better at it. The machines can only recreate what's gone before. So, it's up to us creators to innovate, to do what hasn't been done before. So, we're not just a composite and an amalgamation of the past.”

The Last Machine Breaker runs 10-16 November in venues across Yorkshire.

10 & 11 November, BRADFORD: Mind the Gap https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/bradford-opera-festival/the-last-machine-breaker/e-zeqodz

12 November, SKIPTON: Skipton Town Hall: https://skiptontownhall.co.uk/whats-on/the-last-machine-breaker/

15 November, LEEDS (HOLBECK): Slung Low: https://www.slunglow.org/shows/

16 November, MARSDEN: Marsden Mechanics: https://www.marsdenmechanics.co.uk/events/the-last-machine-breaker/