The Eye of Ra
This piece was commissioned by the Sarasota Youth Opera in 1998. It was performed approximately six times and remains as a credit on their web site as one of their successful commissions. I have since refurbished it for adult voices and updated the technology aspect. No more phone modems! There is an archival version of this work performed by the Youth Opera in an abbreviated form, available on YouTube at
This is the story of a girl celebrating her sixteenth birthday 100 years from now. As a gift she receives a key, The Eye of Ra, that allows her to explore and interact with Egypt through an app that her parents have purchased that presents interactive holograms of Egypt. Her personal assistant is a accommodating humandroid, called THOM (Total Home Operations Module) who is capable of running the simulation and helping her with any problems or questions along the way. Innocently , she assumes that she will join King Tut for his sixteenth birthday and they will have a blast. She brings her modern take on her world to an ancient culture and finds that being sixteen is very different 3000 years ago. Unknown to her, she arrives at a time when a sinister plot is in the making against King Tut. Her youthful and irreverent views of their practices steer the focus of the evildoers towards her and THOM must rescue her from certain death.