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The Voyage

An Opera by Philip Glass

Libretto by
David Henry Hwang

Story by Philip Glass

Commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera
in commemoration of the 500th Anniversary
of Columbus' arrival in America



Index



CHARACTERS

 THE SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE, Tenor
COMMANDER, Soprano
SHIP'S DOCTOR/SPACE TWIN #1, Soprano
SECOND MATE/SPACE TWIN #2, Bass (Lyric)
ISABELLA, Mezzo
COLUMBUS, Bass Baritone
EARTH TWIN #1, Mezzo
EARTH TWIN #2, Bass
CHORUS

SYNOPSIS

PROLOGUE

While a chorus poses eternal questions about the nature of time and space, the Scientist, seated in a wheelchair that descends from the stars, ponders the idea of exploration. Despite faulty equipment, inadequate bodies and finite minds, there always have been people who have the courage to follow where their vision leads.

ACT ONE, Scene I

Toward the end of the earth's Ice Age, a space ship hurtles out of control toward our own solar system. Inside, the Commander, complaining that nothing on her ship works - neither the lights, nor the engines, not even her training, which did not prepare her for this eventuality - foresees a beast licking its chops, waiting for the dead. As the space ship plunges closer to earth, the First Mate punches up an image of the rapidly approaching planet on his computer and describes its life-giving properties - water, oxygen, vegetation and humanoid forms. Meanwhile, the Second Mate relives his wretched childhood, as the Ship's Doctor remembers her garden and children at springtime. The space ship crashes.

Scene II

Still at his computer screen, the First Mate sees images of a late-Ice Age planet, whose terrain in some areas is similar to our own. As the Commander asks to see a last glimpse of the planet she and her shipmates will soon forget, the First Mate adjusts his screen to receive a map of the cosmos. In one corner, blinking, is the travelers' home planet. Each blink produces a three-note chord. As each crew member takes one of the ship's pulsating directional crystals, any two of which when brought together will point the way home, he pictures in his mind the world he would like to live in - the Second Mate a realm ruled by machines, where he turns the sky black (the Europe of the Industrial Revolution); the First Mate a continuation of his voyage (he is transported to a pavilion near the top of a Tibetan mountain); and the Ship's Doctor a place where people will listen eagerly to her stories (she appears in India, with masses of children around her).

Scene III

Alone, the Commander stares at the pulsating crystal in her hand. She would like to have died rather than be bound by boredom. She prepares to exit the spacecraft, wondering what fate awaits her. As the door opens and she steps out, natives, performing the rites of spring, think she is a fantastic creature, barely humanoid. The Commander is swept up in the natives' ritual.

ACT TWO, Scene I

At Granada in 1492, Queen Isabella and the Spanish court bid farewell to Columbus as he sets out for the Indies. As the queen encourages the navigator by quoting from Scripture, members of the court promise him titles, wealth and power. This scene turns out to be... Scene II ...something remembered by Columbus on board the Santa Maria. The First Mate's voice, calling out the dawn watch, jolts Columbus back to the sordid realities of life at sea. It is the thirty-second day into the voyage, and his men no longer have faith in him or his mission. The awesome solitude seems to crush in on him when he has a vision of Isabella, who reminds him that his dream, before he set out, was so real it can have come only from God. But, argues Columbus, "As through the expanses of blue I see my own face, and it is old". Isabella reminds him of Noah's faithfulness. The explorer further expresses his doubts about "the order of God, and the Turks and Jews we kill in His name". AS the queen appears surrounded by a radiant holy light, looking like the Madonna, she calls on the explorer to remember a virgin "who felt in her belly a stirring, and held fast to the faith this was God". When Columbus requires a promise that by this expedition he will further the kingdom of God, Isabella, swearing it is so and becoming more clearly a mortal woman, claims to be his queen, his love, his one true God. A bird sings, and the First and Second Mates cry out "Tierra!"

ACT THREE, Scene I

In a space station in our solar system in the year 2092, Space Twins 1 and 2 scan various sectors of the universe, seeking the origins of life. At the same time, archeologists Earth Twins 1 and 2, each carrying a glowing crystal from Act I, meet in a research laboratory on earth. While hiking in the Andes, one heard a low-pitched tone; the other was digging near the Ganges when she heard a high-pitched tone. As the Earth Twins bring their crystals together, the original three-note chord is recreated, causing the space station's scanner to focus on the "home" planet in the cosmos from which the original visitors came.

Scene II

The Commander, alone at first, muses on the eternal quest of humanity - a goal, perhaps, to be realized in the coming voyage. In a jubilant send-off, various dignitaries and politicians dance before a brass band and a large, enthusiastic crowd. The chorus of good wishes dims as the team of explorers enters the spaceship.

Scene III

Inside the spaceship, each member of the expedition - the Commander, Space Twins 1 and 2 and the First Mate - equipped with a telephone headset, bids farewell to his or her loved ones. Once again, mankind is off on a voyage of discovery, exploring the unknown.

EPILOGUE

As the space travelers fade away, Columbus appears on his deathbed. It is 1506. Dominican monks chant a requiem, and Isabella comes to accompany the explorer to the realm of which she already is part. As he accuses the queen of failing to keep her promises, she redicules his assurance as being the child of pride, his actions in the New World as being guided by Lucifer. She invites him to her bed. Columbus resists her, claiming, "The journey that awaits is far more seductive than all your last temptations". Still pondering questions raised by man's eternal curiosity, he is transported to the stars.



PREFACE

by Philip Glass

From the beginning of my work on The Voyage, I had decided that the opera would be a celebration of the spirit of discovery. Of course, the occasion for the commission from the Metropolitan Opera was the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in the New World. However, my intention was to shift the focus from the man himself to the imagination and dream that animated him.

I've never felt that "reality" was well served in an opera house. And I think this is even more true when the subject of the opera is based on historical events. Surely those with a taste for historical facts and documentation would be better served in libraries where academic research is presumably reliable and readily available. The opera house is the arena of poetry par exellence, where the normal rules of historical research need not be applied and where, in the world of artistic imagination, a different kind of truth can be discovered.

Now, Christopher Columbus was a dynamic, fascinating man. In most ways he was a man of his times - no better and probably no worse. But remarkable for the force and dedication that he brought to his dreams. And this, above all, is what sets him apart and makes him compelling for us today - a half a millennium later. It is the driving force in Columbus that draws us to him and inspires books, plays, movies and operas about him.

The Voyage is about discoveries and the people who make them - those intrepid souls, who from the beginning of human history, have willingly, even gladly, left the world of the familiar and secure to plunge, often recklessly, into an unknown future. And these "discoveries" need not be concerned with geographical exploration. Scientists and artists are high on my list of courageous man and women who have changed the world in which we live.

In fact, the Prologue of this opera is delivered by a Scientist, inspired by the real life scientist Stephen Hawking, who is currently exploring the furthest reaches of the universe without leaving his wheelchair.

The three Acts relate to Columbus and his past, his present, and his future, in that order. Acts One and Three (the past and future) are fiction and science fiction. Act Two represents only fragments of his life - in fact two days only. The first day (Scene I) portrayes him leaving the Court of Isabella and the second (Scene II) is October 11, 1492, the day before his arrival in the New World. In this opera Columbus never meets the Indians. That particular cultural confrontation takes place in a different time and place and serves as the finale to Act One, and is every bit as traumatic and dramatic as the "real" historical "Columbus" event must have been.

David Henry Hwang, working from the story "treatment" I prepared for the Met almost four years ago, and through further discussions with David Poutney, our director, and myself, has, to my mind, brought the libretto splendidly to life. In his working out of the material, the imaginary scenes seem almost more real and the historical scenes more imaginary. Throughout, the characters had begun to live and breathe, and when the libretto was completed, were ready to begin their voyage from the world of the writer's imagination to the opera stage.



PROLOGUE

 (The opera begins with Off Stage Chorus #1, singing the Music of Spheres. From the stars, The Scientist, in wheel chair with computerized voice-box, appears. During his aria, the Music of the Spheres can sometimes be recognized posing certain questions.)
SCIENTIST

Quarks, kooks
Heretics, lunatics
Lovers and defilers of God
Set off in leaky vessels
Towards the holes on the horizon
With faulty fuel lines
And failing eyesight
And limbs quite inadequate
And minds finally limited
To the certainty
That the inadequate body can follow
Where the inadequate mind has been

When my daughter was born, I smiled like a hyena
And for a moment I felt my legs and my limbs
For a moment I knew
No boundaries
A body, a planet, a universe, a mind
For whom the limits do not apply

To voyage lies where
The vision lies
There

CHORUS
(simultaneously; repeated variously, fragmented)

Will time run backwards?
Is time a spherical object?
Is real time imaginary?
Can particles escape from a black hole?
Does a finite universe exist without boundaries?
Does God abhor a naked singularity?
What is the mind of God?
Can man picture a universe created without God?
Does God have a purpose?

End of Prologue



ACT ONE

Scene I

Commander (Soprano), First Mate/Scientist (Tenor), Ship's Doctor (Soprano), Second Mate (Bass)
The interior of a spaceship as it hurdles out of control towards our solar system. A time towards the end of our ice age, about 50,000 B.C.
COMMANDER

No more choices
Don't rely on options
The concept of free will
Is dead

SECOND MATE

My children are grandparents
I should have studied law

FIRST MATE

Any fate is better
Than another supper
in the Ship's mess hall

COMMANDER

Impulse power
Damn the technicians
The tradition of workmanship
Is dead

SHIP'S DOCTOR

Think of my garden,
I plant in my garden, peas, and carrots, and lillies

COMMANDER

I did my training
In a box lined with buzzers
All hope of promotion
Is dead

FIRST MATE

We're nearing a solar system
Should I inquire?
Of course - look at her, she's preparing for death.

(He begins to punch up a picture of earth on his screen.)
SECOND MATE
Nothing could be worse than my wretched childhood
SHIP'S DOCTOR
And put out candles in case of a frost
COMMANDER
The lights do not flash
The eyes do not blink
The engines do not ignite
The beast rears its ugly head
And smiles, and licks its chops
And lies on the ground, tongue extended, to wait
For the dead
FIRST MATE
An abundance of water
Twenty percent oxygen
Vegetation for CO2
Humanoid forms
Shivering in their skins
Waiting
For the ice to melt
SECOND MATE
Our horrible family outing
SHIP'S DOCTOR
And, in the spring, oh, the children!
SECOND MATE
Daddy, are we there yet?
SHIP'S DOCTOR
Were there children?
SECOND MATE
Are we there yet?
SHIP'S DOCTOR
Were there children?
FIRST MATE
Commander, there is a planet
Where conditions are proper
COMMANDER
For death?
FIRST MATE
For life.
COMMANDER
For life?
FIRST MATE
Shall we go down?
(The spaceship crashes.)

Scene II

(The crew of the spaceship is now on the Earth's surface.)
FIRST MATE
It appears to be a planet
In the infant stages of our own
COMMANDER
The days of wandering
Are gone
No more floating
On the event horizon
Casually observing the death of a star
Now, we must keep our feet
Fixed to the soil
Pilot, may we have one last glimpse
Of the planet we are doomed to forget?

(First Mate adjusts the screen, a map of the cosmos appears. In
one corner, blinking, is the traveller's home planet. With each
blink, we hear a four-part chord, pulsating.)

FIRST MATE
As planets go, it was not so impressive
SHIP'S DOCTOR
It had an irregular orbit
SECOND MATE
The inhabitants played cards day and night
COMMANDER
Now each of us take
One of the ship's directional crystals
If a day arrives when we may return
Any two brought together
Will point the way home
Pilot, will you set this crew
Towards some less randow destination?
FIRST MATE
Pilot yourselves
Picture the world you would live in
Then enter it
This is the adventure
Of life in the realm of gravity

Musical Interlude

(Commander distributes the glowing crystals among members of the crew. Ship's Doctor and Second Mate close their eyes and begin moving towards opposite sides of the stage. As they do, the pulsating chord begins to break up into its seperate components, and the map of the galaxy fades away, replaced by images of the crew members' visions.)

Scene 2 - Conclusion

SECOND MATE
In my secret heart
All I ever wanted
Was to escape home
With no hope of return
Now I see
A world ruled by machines
And my hand on the lever

As I look above
And say, "There, the sky!
It is I who habe turned it to black!"

(He disappears into an image of Europe during the worst of the Industrial Revolution.)
SHIP'S DOCTOR
In my secret heart
All I ever wanted
Was to tell my stories
To ears eager to hear
Now I see
A world gathered round
The tales from my mouth
Children and adults
Who listen for days and nights
As I begin: "Once upon a time"
(She disappears into an image of India, masses of people gathered around her.)
FIRST MATE
In my secret heart
All I ever wanted
Was to continue the voyage
With vessel or without
Makes no difference to me
(He is transported to a pavilion near top of a Tibetan mountain.)

Scene III

(The Commander is left alone. She stares at the pulsating crystal in her hand.)
COMMANDER
In my secret heart
I would rather have died
Than live tethered to
The change of seasons
A ringing telephone
The endlessly repeating summer holiday
All I ever wanted
Was to kick up my heels
Without touching the ground
So I will simply walk
Into the arms of whatever lies waiting
(She prepares to exit.)
What will they want from me?
Potions and jewels and color TV?
Or perhaps their hopes lie in the spiritual realm
A book of the dead, a mantra, some relics
Perhaps I will be enslaved
Carried aloft in the most shameful fashion
And will I come someday to mate?
With wordless grunts in a dark cave of groping?
Will I know what to do, where to touch, how to kiss?
Will I one day find myself loving the stranger?
Yes, I suppose that love and hate
Mingle like blood between the sheets
When two worlds meet
(The perspective changes. Suddenly, we are with a large group of natives outside the spaceship - Chorus #2. The Commander seems to them a fantastic creature, barely humanoid, speaking gibberish.)
NATIVES
What will she want from us?
Potions and jewels and photos in color?
Or perhaps her hopes lie in the spiritual realm
A book of the dead, a mantra, some relics
Perhaps we will be enslaved
Carried aloft in the most shameful fashion
And will we come someday to mate?
With wordless grunts in a dark cave of groping?
Will we know what to do, where to touch, how to kiss?
Will we one day find ourselves loving the stranger?
Yes, I suppose that love and hate
Mingle like blood between the sheets
When two worlds meet
(The Commander is absorbed by the Natives, performing the Rites of Spring.)
End of Act One



ACT TWO

Scene I

Columbus (Bass), Isabella (Mezzo), First Mate/Scientist (Tenor), Second Mate (Bass)
(1492. The Spanish court at Granada - Chorus #3. The Queen and court bid Columbus bon voyage on his great expedition to the Indies.)
CHORUS

Admiral of the Ocean Sea
Setting forth by your command
Don Cristobal Colon
It is our will and pleasure
That you be Admiral
Viceroy
Perpetual Governor-General
Of all you shall win and discover
And shall be empowered henceforth
To call yourself
Don Cristobal Colon
Your heirs and successors
So entitled
From rank to rank forever
Amen

ISABELLA (interspersed with chorus)

Qui navigant mare ennarent pericula eius
Et audientes auribus nostris admirabimur
Beati oculi qui vident quae vos videtis
Et potestas a mari usque ad mare
Et a fluminibus usque ad fines terrae
Et erunt reges nutritii tui
Et reginae nutrices tuae
["They that sail on the sea tell of the danger thereof
And when we hear it with our ears, we marvel thereat"
Ecclesiasticus 43:26
"Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see"
Luke 10:23
"And his dominion shall be from sea to sea
And from the river even to the ends of the earth"
Zechariah 9:10
"And kings shall be thy nursing fathers
And their Queens your nursing mothers"
Isaiah 49:23 ]

CHORUS and ISABELLA

Amen

Scene II

(The "Amens" fade into the distance, as do Isabella and the court, literally. We find Columbus downstage, on board the Santa Maria. As his "Amens" come to dominate the other voices, we realize we have been seeing a memory. In reality, he is far away on sea, isolated, alone. It is October 11, 1492.)
COLUMBUS

Amen, amen

(His memories are violated by the First Mate, calling out the dawn watch.)

Dawn of day thirty-two
And the memories of court
Their glorious voices
Have vanished beyond the horizon
Replaced
By infernal mumblings
Of men who pluck out
Their teeth with their fingers
And wipe their backsides
With the end of a rope

FIRST MATE

Bendita sea la luz
Y la Santa Veracruz
Y el Señor de la Verdad
Y la Santa Trinidad
Bendita sea el alma
Y el Señor que nos la manda
Bendito sea el día
Y el Señor que nos lo envía
["Blessed be the light of day
And the Holy Cross we say
And the Lord of Veritie
And the Holy Trinity
Blessed be the immortal soul
And the Lord who keeps it whole
Blessed be the light of day
And He who keeps the night away"]

COLUMBUS

Yes, there are times
When the faithful do waver
And solitude takes us
In its smothering arms
And crushes, and crushes
Our breath and our vision
Until we lie gasping
In madness and doubt

SECOND MATE

Oeste: nada del noroeste,
Nada del sudoeste
["West: nothing to the northward
Nothing to the southward"]

FIRST MATE

Leva el papahigo
["Hoist the main course"]

(Isabella appears upstage where the court had last been seen.)
ISABELLA

Empowered by God
Your vision of such lucidity
As if, in your hands,
Lay already the kingdoms of Asia
Such certainty, it is clear
Can only have come from God
Whose Word you disparage
With all this weakness and weeping

FIRST MATE

Suban dos a los penolos
["Two of you up on the yardarm"]

COLUMBUS

But my vision has grown hazy
As through the expanses of blue
I see my own face, and it is old
And it wonders

SECOND MATE

Tabla en buena hora
Quien no viniere que no coma
["Table is set,
Who don't come won't eat"]

ISABELLA

The old men who wonder
Are those lacked faith while young
Remember instead, the example of Noah
Who faithfully awaited the coming bird song

COLUMBUS

And in the hurlyburly of the water-works
Of random spouts and tidepools
I seem to doubt even the order of God
And the Turks and Jews we kill in His name

SECOND MATE

Oeste: nada del noroeste
Nada del sudoeste

FIRST MATE

Juegue el guimbalete para que la bomba achique!
["Work that pump brake till she sucks"]

ISABELLA

Still your doubts, Don Cristobal
Let my song smoothe your salted brow
For the ocean is kind
The tides they are ordered
Each pass of the waves
Brings near to your feet
The evidence you seek

SECOND MATE

Dad vuelta!
["Put your back into it"]

FIRST MATE

Amén y Dios nos de buenas noches
Buen viaje
["Amen and God give us a good night
And good sailing"]

ISABELLA

Don Cristobal,
It sometimes requires a woman
To rekindle the faith of a man

(Isabella is surrounded by a radiant holy light.)

Remember one, a child, a virgin
Who felt in her belly a stirring
And held fast to the faith this was God?

COLUMBUS

And do you promise me, oh blessed one,
Riches and governance,
And most of all,
That I further the kingdom of God?

(Isabella steps downstage, towards Columbus, with every step becoming more clearly a mortal woman.)

Yes, I swear
Now, you must as well
Will you hold to the faith
That Joseph took into the stable?

COLUMBUS

You look to me
Like Dona Beatriz
Whose love I sought in Gomera
Can it be? You come now as a woman
With flesh warmer than my own?

FIRST MATE and SECOND MATE

Salve Regina Mater
Misericordiae
Vita, Dulcedo et spes nostra salve
Ad Te clamamus exsules Filii Evae
["Hail, Holy Queen
Mother of Mercy,
Our life, our sweetness and our hope!
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;ISABELLA

I take many forms
I wear many faces
But all for the one righteous end
That the voyage you take
Is made in my name
And discoveries claimed for my honor
I am your Queen
I am your love
I am your one true God
Trust
Follow
Believe

FIRST MATE and SECOND MATE

Ad Te suspiramus Gementes et flentes
In hac lacrimarum valle eja ergo
Advocata nostra, illos tuos
Misericordes oculos ad nos converte
Et Jesum Benedictum fructum ventris tui
Nobis post hoc exilium ostende
O clemens, O pia
O Dulcis Virgo Maria
["To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping
In this valley of tears. Turn then,
Most gracious advocate,
Thine eyes of mercy towards us;
And after this our exile
Show us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Oh clement, oh loving,
Oh sweet virgin Mary."]

(They embrace. From offstage tape, the bird sings, indicating land is near.)
FIRST MATE

Lumbre! Tierra!
Adelante! Adelante!
Tierra! Tierra!

End of Act Two



ACT THREE

Scene I

Space station twins (Bass and Soprano), Archeologist Twins (Mezzo and Bass)
(2092. The stage is split into two parts. one is a space station in our solar system, commanded by a set of twins. Behind them, a screen scans various sectors of the universe. The other half is a research laboratory on earth, where a set of twins, both archeologists, meet carrying two of the glowing crystals we saw in Act I. Each of the crystals emits a particular frequency.)
SPACE TWIN 1

All space exists
In random disorder

SPACE TWIN 2

Be that as it may
Our task is clear
To order disorder
By vectors and quadrants
By infrared catalogues
In the hope that one day
A pattern will lead us
To life

SPACE TWIN 1

Life?
Sometimes I feel
It is ghosts we seek
In a black hole's pulsars
Or a dwarf star's shadows
Could there somewhere
Really be beings
Who stare into space
And echo our foolish cry
"Yes, I will order disorder"

EARTH TWIN 1

I was hiking in the Andes

EARTH TWIN 2

I was digging near the Ganges

EARTH TWIN 1

When I heard the most
Amazing sound
A tone high-pitched

EARTH TWIN 2

Mine low

EARTH TWIN 1

Unearthly

EARTH TWINS 1 and 2

As if the very rocks were
Lifting their voices
To heaven
How utterly coincidental

EARTH TWIN 1

That the same event

EARTH TWIN 2

Should befall us both

EARTH TWINS 1 and 2

On the very same day

(Earth Twins bring their crystals together. As they do, the original pulsating four-part chord is re-created. In the space station, the map rushes quickly through the universe until it indicates, as in Act One, the spot in the cosmos from whence came the original visitors.)
SPACE TWIN 1

Sector 15, Vector 320,
Quadrant 1479

SPACE TWIN 2

Sound the alarms
Radio the Chancellor
Quick - alert the media!

SPACE TWIN 2

Six years in orbit
Brought to its fruition
I want a cold beer

SPACE TWIN 1

I want the Nobel Prize
They'll give us six
Three for you, three for me

SPACE TWIN 1

Quadrant 1479
So far away

SPACE TWINS 1 and 2

It will take us many, many years
To reach such a destination

EARTH TWINS 1 and 2

What a strange tone

EARTH TWIN 1

No radioactivity

EARTH TWIN 2

No stray particles

EARTH TWIN 1

Perhaps it is simply decorative

EARTH TWINS 1 and 2

We'll run it through the standard battery

EARTH TWIN 1

But 'till then -

EARTH TWIN 2

It is -

EARTH TWINS 1 and 2

Quite pleasantly hypnotical
It will take us many, many years
To reach our final conclusion

(The Commander's voice joins the quartet of twins, and we segue directly into the next scene.)

Scene II

Commander (Soprano), Space Twins (Bass and Soprano), First Mate/Scientist (Tenor)
(A spaceport. Several years later. An expedition is about to depart for the recently-discovered planet, the source of life.)
COMMANDER

Through the ages
All we have sought to know
What once had been believed unknowable

Continuing this tradition
We depart on our expedition
Which will not reach its end
'Til the time of our children's children

We cast off the earth
And hereby ascend to heaven

(Chorus #4 of dignitaries and world rulers gathers to see off the explorers.)
DIGNITARIES

Secretary General of the United Nations
Prime Minister of the EEC
President of North America
Chancellor of the United States of Africa
Chairman of IT&T
Controller of the South American Monetary Fund
Executive Vice President of Coca Cola
Executive Director, World Environmental Council
Emporer of China

(The team of explorers heads into their spaceship. The door closes behind them, as the acclaim of the chorus fades quickly away, replaced by the music of machines.)

Scene III

(Inside the spaceship, each member of the expedition is alone in his or her solitude, each on a telephone-headset, taking their goodbyes.)
FIRST MATE

If you one day remarry
Make sure that he loves children

COMMANDER

be careful, my darling
Your eyesight is poor at night

SPACE TWIN 2

Father, don't call me
An undutiful child

SPACE TWIN 1

I loved the parade
But now that it's over...

FIRST MATE

I always imagined
A prom for my daughter

SPACE TWIN 2

I always imagined
That you would be proud

COMMANDER

I always imagined
This day might arise

SPACE TWIN 1

I always imagined
A prize on my mantle
But these obligations
These stiff mock-heroics
I never imagined

COMMANDER

I never imagined
That love would flow
Deeper than work

SPACE TWIN 2

Then, hang up now
Goodbye

FIRST MATE

I never imagined
The phone lines would end

SPACE TWIN 1

Then life
Leads at last
To this solitude

SPACE TWIN 1

The quest would devour
The very limits of my life

FIRST MATE

Then love
Comes in 3-minute increments

COMMANDER

Then my heart
Had been braver than I had ever hoped

FIRST MATE

Goodbye
To talks about nothing

SPACE TWIN 1

To paper lanterns

SPACE TWIN 2

Then, hang up now
Goodbye
Goodbye
So now it is clear
As earthbound illusions
And family myths
Fall like scales
From the eyes of St. Paul
That always
And ever
As I walked on my journey
I walked
As a child
With tiny feet
Walking alone

SPACE TWIN 1

Goodbye
To prizes and politics

COMMANDER

Goodbye
To the warm part of my heart

COMMANDER, FIRST MATE and SPACE TWIN 1

Goodbye
To the gem of my future
Goodbye
Goodbye
Hello
Hello

End of Act Three



EPILOGUE

 (The space travellers fade away, revealing Columbus, lying on his deathbed. Domican monks chant a requiem mass - Chorus #5. The year is 1506. Isabella appears before him.)
COLUMBUS

They chant for me
Am I to assume that I no longer live?

ISABELLA

Cristobal Colon
Cristobal Colon

COLUMBUS

And now the song
Of she who led me to sea
But neglected even to call
On her deathbed
You promised me one-tenth of all I discovered

ISABELLA

Well, monarchs may change their minds

COLUMBUS

You promised me glory and honor

ISABELLA

I regret that you were brought back in chains

COLUMBUS

You promised that I would find Asia
But cruellest of all
You swore to me
That I would magnify the kingdom of God

ISABELLA

I gave you next best
The Spanish Inquisition
Didn't you know my true face?
Didn't you see that your arrogant faith
Your blasted assurance
Was the child not of God
But of pride
The angel of vanity
Called by men, Lucifer?
And so, in His name,
You slaughtered the New World
And packed them away as slaves
In the hulls of your ships
Girls hung themselves
Bending their knees
As there was no room to stand
So, Cristobal, come
Embrace me!
With this, your final breath
Come to my bed
Unzip me, defile me
Judge yourself, and enter my world

COLUMBUS

Is it foolish to seek the mind of God
If there may be no God?
Is it futile to reach for order
In a universe built upon chaos?
Is it vanity to hope one day
To know the design of all things?
Even the sad expanses of regretful human souls?

From the first amoeba
Who fought to break free of itself
To Ulysses, to Ibn Battuta, to Marco Polo
To Einstein, and beyond
All that we seek to know
Is to know ourselves
To reduce the darkness
By some small degree
To light a candle, jump a stream
That the sum of human ignorance
Might dwindle just a bit
And the deeds of done in darkness
May wither one day perhaps even
Expire

And if our human voyages
Are riddled sometimes with horrors
With pride, with vanity
With the mother's milk of cruelty
Yet finally human evil
Does not deny the good
Of knowledge
Of light
Of revelation
Of the hope that lo one day
Exploration will make obsolete
Even the sins of the explorer

ISABELLA

Goodbye
Don Cristobal
I see you resist my song

COLUMBUS

I'm sorry I'm unable to tarry here longer
But the journey that awaits
Is far more seductive than
All your last temptations
Finally
We take the voyage
When the voyage
Takes us

ISABELLA

Goodbye
Don Cristobal
Goodbye

COLUMBUS

Finally
We take the voyage
When the voyage
Takes us

(Columbus' bed is transported to the stars.)


END OF OPERA




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