The VoyageConsidering the importance of Christopher Columbus discovery of the New World on the economic and cultural expansion of Europe, it is surprising that no lasting musical tribute to him has yet been composed. Possibly the earliest opera on the subject was a comedy, Il Colombo, O La Scoperta Delle Indie (the discovery of the Indies), by Vincenzo Fabrici (Rome 1788). Among nineteenth-century composers who tried their hand at the story, several names stand out: Francesco Morlacchi (Colombo, Genoa 1828), Luigi Ricci (Il Colombo, Parma 1829), Giovanni Bottesini, whose Cristoforo Colombo (1847) was distinguished by a world premiere in Havana. In 1835 Richard Wagner wrote a columbus overture to a drama by Theodore Apel. The explorer enjoyed another musical renaissance around 1892: in Genoa, Columbus' birthplace, the Italian aristocrat baron Alberto Franchetti unveiled his meyerbeerian grand opera Cristoforo Colombo. Meanwhile, American composer Silas Gamaliel Pratt brought out an elaborate musical allegory, The Triumph of Columbus, performed in concert at Carnegie Hall in October 1892.
The twentieth century produced two notable stage works about the Genoese explorer, both of them "scenic cantatas" - Darius Milhaud's Christophe Colomb (1930) and Manuel de Falla's Atlantida (1962). Now the Met is marking the quincentenary of Columbus' arrival on this side of the Atlantic with the world premiere of The Voyage, by Philip Glass and David Henry Hwang. Though this marks a Met debut for Hwang, whose other works include the plays Family Devotions, F.O.B. and the acclaimed M. Butterfly, it is technically Glass' second appearance at the house: on November 21, 1976, his Einstein on the Beach generated controversy when it was given at the Met an independent performing group in a special Sunday presentation.
Glass emphasizes that while Columbus features prominently in The Voyage - in a mystical dream sequence in Act II, and in the epilogue - the work is not specifically about him. "It is about the endless search we make for the unknown. You don't have to be Columbus to make this search. Anyone who has left the town they were born in for another place makes a voyage into the unknown. Anyone who has changed jobs or professions makes this kind of voyage. Even the paraplegic Scientist, the central character in the prologue, is a voyager," says Glass. "He's based on a real-life Scientist, who has explored the reaches of the solar system, yet has never left a wheelchair."
According to the composer, the rise and fall of civilization is bound up with this kind of restlessness - a spiritual wanderlust. "My work in opera has involved the study of history, whether the Egyptian civilization in Akhnaten or Gandhi in Satyagraha, and history has become a great love."
Glass himself was responsible for the original story line of The Voyage, first submitted to James Levine and Bruce Crawford around five years ago. At the time, Glass was working on 1,000 Airplanes on the Roof with Hwang and decided that his colleague would be the ideal librettist for the new opera. "David's Oriental background has given him an entirely different point of view on American culture from that of the white European male," offers Glass, "and this has added further power and eloquence to the libretto." Hwang, a first-generation American, notes that "American-born children of immigrants have a certain dual perspective - you are deeply aware of the other culture with which you have been raised, while being fully enveloped in American culture."
One theme that often runs through Hwang's work is the encounter and conflict between a traditional culture and a more advanced one. "How do we experience our own culture in relief against a radically different background of comparison? Each act of The Voyage examines this interaction," states Hwang, "and one of my favourite moments in the opera is the end of the first act, where the Commander of the rocket greets a tribe of natives and finds she is speaking a language they perceive as gibberish.&quit;
Glass observes that Hwang also has brought a quasi-religious aspect to the story. The epilogue features a chorus of monks, while in Act II a conversation about wind and sails by two of Columbus' sailors evolves into a celebration of the Mass. "As the historic Columbus was a bit of a mystic," observes Hwang, "I felt it necessary to incorporate some of this into the opera. Hence religious faith is one factor that motivates him in the second act, and in the epilogue he must reconcile himself with the negative results of his deed emerging at the end of his life."
Glass claims the heart of his score is the augmented triad. "It's a fascinating construction - two major thirds. While composing the score, I discovered that the only way you can resolve an augmented triad is to think of it as two simultaneous tonalities. And it doesn't resolve until the epilogue, where the monks' chorus outlines the augmented triad melodically, finally breaking it apart into two scales, each in a different key."
Asked if he has created music to express the text of The Voyage, Glass stresses that is the only way theater music works for him. "This is what I've been doing for the last twenty-five years. I try to find a way that the music becomes a metaphor for the theatrical structure. If it doesn't do that, it doesn't justify itself."
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