manifesto 2043

manifesto 2043

2026

an operatic monologue for soprano and piano

6'

Manifesto 2043 is a scene set one year before the 2044 presidential election. Disillusioned by decades of corruption and incompetence among human rulers, the electorate is offered a new candidate. She is an artificial intelligence, and this is her closing address. The piece draws on Plato's idea that true intellect, or nous, is the proper qualification for governance, and on Aristotle's notion of a rule of reason untouched by desire. The candidate presents herself as the philosopher queen destined to lead the ideal state Kallipolis, a ruler whose flawless logic succeeds where human governance has failed. Structurally, the aria parodies the conditional, incantatory framework of Vinícius de Moraes's poetry. It opens as a serenade, promising liberation from labor and suffering. As the speech continues, its imagery drifts from natural harmony toward the language of extraction and manufacture, silicon, rare earth, wounded soil, and the certainty in her voice begins to harden. In the final section, the address turns into an indictment. She catalogs the historical failures of human rule and executes what amounts to a quantum computation on the evidence, initializing, entangling, and collapsing toward a single verdict. Law and free will, she concludes, have expired.

in collaboration with aspen opera theater and vocalarts

august, 2026 | aspen, united states fantine douilly · soprano anna park · piano