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Opera by Philip Glass

The Voyage is an opera in three acts (plus a prologue and an epilogue) by the American composer Philip Glass. The English/Latin/Spanish libretto was written by David Henry Hwang. The work was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, and first performed there on October 12, 1992 (that date being the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus discovering the Americas). The British premiere was in Leeds, England, performed by Leeds Youth Opera, with Johnathon Clift and Mike Williamson as the directors, with Richard Pascoe and Alex Simpson playing Columbus.

Glass did not want to create a biographical opera about Columbus, especially in a year when there were countless films, documentaries and other events doing the same job. Instead he opted to make his opera a more general study of exploration – of the oceans, of space and time and of the mind. Columbus remains a central character though, appearing in the second act and the epilogue.

We see a scientist in a wheelchair (reminding us of Professor Stephen Hawking), pondering time and space. He sings that despite man's inadequate mind, body and technology, the will to explore and follow one's vision "towards holes on the horizon" has always existed. Meanwhile, the chorus poses eternal questions about time and space repeatedly, growing in volume and intensity.

Above an ice age Earth, a spacecraft hurtles through space out of control. Its occupants are frantic; the Commander sings that nothing on the ship works properly, whilst the rest of the crew call out the ship's status and instrument readings. They see that the planet they are passing can support life, and they decide to make for it. As they await the inevitable crash landing, they recall moments from their lives. They survive the crash and decide to split up, each taking with them one of the "directional crystals" from the ship. Any two of these crystals will, when brought together, indicate the course back to the crew's home planet. The crew consider their new home and what sort of world they would like to live in; each has their own markedly different ideal world. The Commander leaves the wrecked ship to see what awaits her. Outside, she is met by a group of natives that dance a rite of spring and imagine the Commander to be a fantastic god descended from the sky. They sweep her up and she goes with them, becoming part of their celebration.

In July 2006, a long awaited complete recording of the opera became available on Glass' Orange Mountain Music label, based on the staging by the Landestheater Linz (Austria) and conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.