The New York Times International - 30.07.2019

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2 | T UESDAY, JULY 30, 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

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The laptop — or what’s left of it — is a

mangled carcass: Its innards have been

ripped out, and only a few strips of metal

and plastic remain. This was the Mac-

Book Air that The Guardian used to

store files leaked by the United States

intelligence contractor Edward Snow-

den. Guardian employees destroyed the

computer with power tools in July 2013

after the files on it were deemed a threat

to British national security.

The destruction order came from the

Government Communications Head-

quarters, or GCHQ, a 100-year-old intel-

ligence and security agency tasked with

keeping Britain safe. The organization,

which usually prefers to be under the ra-

dar, is celebrating its centenary with

“Top Secret: From Ciphers to Cyber Se-

curity,” an exhibition of more than 100

objects at the Science Museum in Lon-

don that runs through Feb. 23.

In addition to the laptop, the items in-

clude an encryption key used by Queen

Elizabeth II to make sure her phone con-

versations weren’t tapped and a brief-

case containing a clunky brown handset

that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

used for top-secret calls.

GCHQ is one of Britain’s most secret

and secretive organizations: It wasn’t

officially acknowledged in law until

1994. So why has it decided to appear in
      a museum?
      “We needed to tell our story, to be able
      to show the British people that this is
      what we do on their behalf,” said Tony
      Comer, the organization’s official histori-
      an. Part of the aim, he added, is to con-
      vince “those who really like solving
      problems that perhaps a career in
      GCHQ is the right thing for them.”
      He said that the agency was “radi-
      cally” rethinking how it can attract intel-
      ligence operatives.
      “It’s up to us to persuade them how
      cool it would be to work in a place like
      GCHQ,” Mr. Comer said.
      “Top Secret” is cleverly crafted to ap-
      peal to audiences of all ages. Adults can
      learn about the everyday business of
      communications-based espionage and
      counterespionage, and children have a
      play area full of word and number
      games.
      The exhibition’s richest sections,
      which are devoted to World War I, World
      War II and the Cold War, showcase the
      unwieldy contraptions used for espio-
      nage that could now be replaced by a
      desktop computer, a laptop or a smart-
      phone.
      One section focuses on the first down-
      ing of a German airship over Britain,
      which killed 16 crewmen, in September


1995. A vitrine displays the cutting-edge
      technology of the time that was used to
      spot the airship: a radio device fitted in a
      wooden, glass-fronted box, with knobs

on top. Also on view are pieces of metal

and fabric from the skin of the airship;

and a cap, badge and boot that belonged

to the German airmen.

A section about British intelligence

services that dismantled a Soviet spy

network in 1961 recreates a home in sub-

urban London, complete with 1960s-

style floral wallpaper. It includes a radio

transmitter that two spies from the ring

concealed under their kitchen floor, and

a cigarette lighter with a secret com-

partment for encryption codes.

Other sections allude to the use of sat-

ellites and online hacking in intelligence

gathering.

The exhibition is “not necessarily

dealing with a lot of stuff that’s contem-

porary,” said Elizabeth Bruton, the cura-

tor of communications at the Science

Museum. GCHQ was “still a secret orga-

nization,” she added, “so even though

we’ve worked closely with them for this

exhibition, there are still things that

they do that are kept secret.”

Stuart McKenzie, now a vice presi-

dent at the Mandiant consulting arm of

the cybersecurity company FireEye,

worked for the British government for 11

years. He said the business of intelli-

gence had not changed drastically since

World War II. “People are still trying to

break codes. People are still trying to get

in and steal secrets,” he said. “Some of

the tools have changed.”

As the world moves toward an “intel-

lectual and thought-based economy,

where intellectual property is the key,”

Mr. McKenzie said, “protection of state

secrets and organizations’ secrets is go-

ing to be the most important thing.”

In today’s cyber landscape, he said,

Britain needs more than “a few people

who’ve gone to Oxford and Cambridge,”

so it made sense for GCHQ to reach out

to a wider pool.

But were the show’s young visitors

eager to join the cloak-and-dagger

world of GCHQ?

Jake Drexler, 12, visiting from Los An-

geles with his father, a gaming-industry

executive, was busy solving a scram-

bled word puzzle on the exhibition’s

opening day. He said that the show was

“fun” and that he liked the wartime dis-

plays.

“They had to keep telling each other

codes, but without letting the other side

know what was happening,” he said. “It

was interesting how they figured out

how to do that, and how they broke the

codes on the other side.”

Did he want to become a spy when he

grew up? “A spy, maybe not so much,

but a code breaker, that would be cool,”

he said. “I mean, it’s less risky.”

Colin Pilat, 11, who was visiting from

Vaires-sur-Marne, France, with his par-

ents and three siblings, voiced similar

concerns. There is “action and logic” in

espionage, he said, but “it’s pretty dan-

gerous — that’s the problem.”

JODY KINGZET; SCIENCE MUSEUM GROUP

Clockwise from top: Visitors at “Top Secret: From Ciphers to Cyber Security” at the Science Museum in London; the Enigma machine was used to encrypt German communica-

tions; the M209 was a portable encryption machine; the instructions for use of a Pickwick telephone, which provided secure lines for British diplomats and government officials.

THE SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDON THE SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDON THE SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDON

A museum show for future spies

LONDON

British intelligence agency

celebrates an anniversary

with an exhibit in London

BY FARAH NAYERI

The intelligence agency,

GCHQ, is “radically”

rethinking how it can attract

intelligence operatives.

contemporary and early-19th-century

repertoire.) The couple met Mr. Ruders

at the Tanglewood Festival of Contem-

porary Music in 1986 and became fast

friends with the composer after being

impressed by a performance of his

“Manhattan Abstraction.”

“Here was this Danish guy,” Mr.

Starobin recalled, “who’s figured out

how to describe New York City in music.

There’s atonal stuff, there’s tonal stuff,

and they’re butting up against each

other — there’s a tension between the

two.”

Mr. Starobin commissioned a few gui-

tar works from Mr. Ruders, and started

a series devoted to the composer; the re-

cording of “The Thirteenth Child,” re-

leased in June, was the 11th installment.

In 1988, Ms. Starobin became Mr. Rud-

ers’s manager, which involves arrang-

ing commissions (including his third

and fourth symphonies) and suggest-

ing, in 2013, that it was time to think

about a new stage work.

“We had worked out a lot of plans to-

gether,” Ms. Starobin said, “and it just

felt to me that it was time for Poul to

write another opera. But I thought that

he should write something very differ-

ent from what he had written in the

past.”

Until then, Mr. Ruders’s operas had

been focused mostly on tragic historical

figures or dystopian fiction. His first,

“Tycho” (1986), is about Tycho Brahe,

the 16th-century Danish astronomer

who, despite his notable discoveries,

spent his final years in exile and lived to

see some of his theories upended by his

assistant, Johannes Kepler. Though the

score remains available from his pub-

lisher, it has not been recorded, and Mr.

Ruders has all but disowned it.

“It bombed and disappeared without

a trace,” said Mr. Ruders, who noted that

he was working with an inexperienced

librettist. “I was not exactly young — I

was 36 — but I’d never written an opera

before.”

“The Handmaid’s Tale,” which

brought the grim world of Margaret At-

wood’s novel to the opera stage — with-

out, as Ms. Atwood initially feared, turn-

ing the handmaids into a high-kicking

chorus line — was more successful, as

was its successor, “Kafka’s Trial” (2005),

which mixes incidents from Kafka’s life

with parts of his posthumous novel,

“The Trial.” A mixed response greeted

“Selma Jezkova” (2007), the tragic story

of a desperate mother who is tried and

hanged for murder, inspired by the Lars

von Trier film “Dancer in the Dark.”

These are fierce works, about strug-

gle rather than hope, and they focus on

principal characters who are at odds

with those around them and with the

world. And, for the most part, these op-

eras are etched in a searing chromatic

language that suits their wrenching

emotions.

“The Thirteenth Child” does have its

forbidding moments. The first act re-

volves around the paranoid King Hjarne

and his greedy cousin Drokan — the re-

gent of the neighboring kingdom, who

covets both Hjarne’s land and his queen,

Gertrude, and whose Iago-like insinua-

tions turn Hjarne against his 12 sons.

Some angular vocal writing and cluster-

rich orchestration were inevitable.

But, although Hjarne and Drokan cre-

ate the plot’s conflicts, it is Gertrude

who provides the human core, sending

her sons into exile before Hjarne can

have them killed, and later sending her

daughter, Lyra — the 13th child of the ti-

tle — on a quest to find them. Along the

way, there is a mishap involving fantas-

tical lilies and ravens, and a magical so-

lution to it that requires Lyra to remain

silent for seven years. Gertrude, Lyra

and Frederic — Drokan’s selfless heir,

who falls in love with Lyra — are respon-

sible for the increasingly lyrical music

as the story advances.

“A wall-to-wall atonal piece can be

fantastic,” Mr. Ruders said. “But if you

want a foreground and background,

mentally and audibly, you need this jux-

taposition between tonality and chro-

maticism, because that’s where you get

the space.”

It was Mr. Ruders who chose “The 12

Brothers,” the story on which the opera

is based. He sent an outline to Ms.

Starobin, who began writing the libretto

on her own. Mr. Starobin at first had no

intention of collaborating with them.

But he did have suggestions, and after a

few months of batting around ideas,

they realized that they were collaborat-

ing after all. Along the way, the

Starobins reconfigured the Grimms’

story, adding the villainous Drokan and

deleting an evil second queen, Frede-

ric’s mother.

“There was a really strong pull,” Ms.

Starobin said, “to make this about fam-

ily, and how families can strengthen

each other or rip each other apart.”

In working with the Starobins, Mr.

Ruders violated the rule he established

in the aftermath of “Tycho”: that his li-

brettists be theater professionals. But

Mr. Starobin had long ago gotten a prac-

tical education in musical theater from

his brother, Michael Starobin, a com-

poser and busy orchestrator for theater,

film and television.

Still, there remained the question of

where the work would be staged. The

Starobins planned from the start to

record it, using the Odense Symphony

Orchestra in Denmark. (Mr. Ruders

lives in Odense, a city of 180,000 south-

west of Copenhagen.) Originally, the or-

chestra was to present the work’s pre-

miere. But all concerned agreed that a

premiere at an opera house would be

preferable, so copies of the score and a

rough mix of the orchestral recording —

the singers were recorded later — made

the rounds.

As it happened, Santa Fe Opera was

searching for a new work for its 2019

summer season, and a finished but un-

heard opera by Mr. Ruders fit the bill.

The company and the Odense orchestra

worked out an arrangement: The opera

house would present the premiere and

then ship the physical production — di-

rected by Darko Tresnjak, with sets by

Alexander Dodge and costumes by Rita

Ryack — to Denmark, where the orches-

tra will perform it in 2021.

Danish composer makes

switch to feel-good opera

RUDERS, FROM PAGE 1

The director Darko Tresnjak and the soprano Jessica E. Jones, who plays Lyra, during

rehearsal for “The Thirteenth Child” at Santa Fe Opera.

RAMSAY DE GIVE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

“There was a really strong pull

to make this about family.”

Russi Taylor, the woman behind many

recognizable animated characters, in-

cluding Disney’s Minnie Mouse and

“The Simpsons” character Martin

Prince, died on Friday in Glendale, Calif.

She was 75.

The Walt Disney Company an-

nounced her death in a news release. A

Disney representative said she died at

home and that the cause of death was co-

lon cancer.

Ms. Taylor rose to fame in 1986 when

she beat out 200 voice actors in an audi-

tion to land the coveted role of Minnie,

the company said.

Over more than 30 years, Ms. Taylor

voiced Minnie in numerous films, in-

cluding “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”

(1988), “Runaway Brain” (1995),

“Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three

Musketeers” (2004) and “Get a Horse!”

(2013).

The actress also voiced Minnie in sev-

eral television series, including “Mickey

MouseWorks,” “Mickey Mouse Club-

house” and the “Mickey Mouse” shorts

series for Disney Channel, as well as

many other Disney characters, includ-

ing Donald Duck’s nephews, Huey, Dew-

ey and Louie.

“You have to bring yourself to a char-

acter,” Ms. Taylor said of voicing Minnie,

according to the Disney statement. “But

because of this particular character, she

actually enhances who I am, she really

does. In a sense, Minnie makes me bet-

ter than I was before because there’s a

lot to live up to.”

In the statement, Ms. Taylor recalled

how her interest in working for Disney

began when she was young.

She said she was a little girl at Disney-

land getting popcorn late one night with

her mother and brother when they saw

Walt Disney “sitting on a bench, so we

introduced ourselves and shared our

popcorn with him.”

Ms. Taylor said he asked what she

wanted to do when she grew up.

“I said, ‘I want to work for you!’” she

said. “So he said, ‘O.K.!’ — and now I

do!”

Ms. Taylor also voiced characters

from “The Simpsons,” including Martin

Prince and the twins Sherri and Terri, as

well as Üter Zörker, an exchange stu-

dent from Germany, and Gummy Sue,

according to the website IMDb.

She voiced Martin Prince in “The

Simpsons Movie” (2007) and in 193

episodes of the series, including three in

2019, the site said.

“Farewell to the hilarious, huggable

Russi Taylor, who every day exploded

with love for her characters,” Matt Sel-

man, an executive producer for “The

Simpsons,” said on Twitter.

Hal Miles, chairman and chief execu-

tive of the Animation Hall of Fame in

Celebration, Fla., said on Sunday that

Ms. Taylor was “one of the leading voice

actresses of our time” and that her role

as Minnie was “like the pinnacle of

voices, especially for a woman voice ac-

tress.”

Ms. Taylor was born in Cambridge,

Mass., on May 4, 1944. In 1991, she mar-

ried Wayne Allwine, who voiced Mickey

Mouse.

A Disney representative said she had

no children.

Ms. Taylor and Mr. Allwine met when

she was recording “Totally Minnie”

(1988), she told Variety in 2017.

They were both married at the time,

but after both were free from their rela-

tionships, they reconnected, Variety re-

ported.

“We just started hanging out as pals,

and the next thing you know, we were an

item,” Ms. Taylor said. “We just had fun.

He was the best. He was a wonderful

man, he was a good man and he was a

kind man. He was very, very strong and

very, very male. And that voice came out

of him. It’s like, ‘Huh?’”

Mr. Allwine died in 2009 at age 62.

Ms. Taylor was nominated for a

Primetime Emmy Award in 2018 for out-

standing character voice-over perform-

ance for her work in “Mickey Mouse.”

She was also nominated for Daytime

Emmy Awards in 2006 and 2007 in the

outstanding performer in an animated

program category for her work in the

animated series “Jakers! The Adven-

tures of Piggley Winks.”

“I never wanted to be famous,” Ms.

Taylor said. “The characters I do are fa-

mous, and that’s fine for me.”

Voice of Minnie Mouse and ‘Simpsons’ characters

RUSSI TAYLOR

1944-

BY DERRICK BRYSON TAYLOR

Russi Taylor, the voice of Minnie Mouse since 1986, with the Disney character in 2018.

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