QUANTUM MECHANIC

A Chamber Opera in One Act
by John G. Bilotta

Libretto by John F. McGrew

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CHARACTERS
Mrs. Schroedinger              Soprano
The Quantum Mechanic    Tenor
Aesop                                   Baritone
The Quark Sisters...
    Miss Up-Down                 Soprano
    Miss Top-Bottom             Soprano
    Miss Charm-Strange       Mezzo-soprano

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SYNOPSIS

One of three winning operas written for the 2007 Opera-in-a-Month Challenge sponsored by VocalWorks, Quantum Mechanic is a short comic farce set in the distant future with a witty and improbable libretto by John F. McGrew.

 

This satiric fable of quantum physics, indeterminacy, dark matter, gedankenexperiments, high technology and low ambitions, relativity, eleven-dimensional string theory, singularities, and anything else we could cull from back issues of Scientific American and Popular Mechanics, centers around the travails of Mrs. Schroedinger as she struggles to create an icebox souffle for the Professor.  A faulty Quantum Refrigerator, the incompetent Mechanic sent to repair it, the three ever-present Quark Sisters who arrive from the parallel universe next door, as well as Aesop, fablist and prime-mover of the drama, round out the cast and facilitate the chaos.

 

In a universe of anti-gravity pens, neurofuzzy rice cookers, and deflating wormholes, is there no one who can save us?