MOOCH THE MAGNIFICENT
When the cleverest person in the room is ... the girl. MOOCH THE MAGNIFICENT is a 40-minute opera on a libretto by Scott Russell Sanders. The setting is a zoo of the future, populated not by animals but by robots in animal form. Mooch, an orphan girl, convinces the zookeeper to hire her to fix the robots when they break down, but she secretly reprograms them to be increasingly wild.
This work is scored for solo SATB singers with accompaniment in versions for piano, chamber ensemble (clarinet, cello, piano, and percussion), and chamber orchestra. This opera is also available in a Spanish translation. All versions are available through Theodore Presser.
More videos of both the chamber and orchestral versions are available on YouTube.