END OF PLAY
THE VOYAGE
(1992)
Libretto by
David Henry Hwang
for the Opera by Philip Glass
Production History
The Voyage was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s arrival in America and opened October 12, 1992. It was conducted by Bruce Ferden; the production design was by David Pountney; the set design was by Robert Israel; the costume design was by Dunya Ramicova; the lighting design was by Gil Wechsler; and the choreography was by Quinny Sacks. The cast was as follows:
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE Douglas Perry
COMMANDER Patricia Schuman
SHIP’S DOCTOR/SPACE TWIN 1 Kaaren Erickson
SECOND MATE/SPACE TWIN 2 Julien Robbins
ISABELLA Tatiana Troyanos
COLUMBUS Timothy Noble
EARTH TWIN 1 Jane Shaulis
EARTH TWIN 2 Jan Opalach
Characters
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, plays natives, the Spanish court at Granada, dignitaries and world rulers, dominican monks
Prologue
The opera begins with the Chorus, offstage, singing the Music of the Spheres. From the stars, the Scientist/First Mate, in wheelchair with computerized voice box, appears. During his aria, the Music of the Spheres can sometimes be seen to pose certain questions.
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE: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
The voyage lies where
The vision lies
There
David Henry Hwang
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?
ACT I
Scene One
Commander, Scientist/First Mate, Ship’s Doctor, Second Mate.
The interior of a spaceship as it hurdles out of control toward our solar system. A time toward 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
SCIENTIST/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 lilies
COMMANDER:I did my training
David Henry Hwang
In a box lined with buzzers
All hope of promotion
Is dead
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:We’re nearing a solar system.
Should I inquire?
Of course—look at her, she’s preparing for death.
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
SCIENTIST/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 outings
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?
SECOND MATE:Are we there yet?
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:Commander, there is a planet
Where conditions are proper
COMMANDER:For death?
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:For life.
COMMANDER:For life?
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:Shall we go down?
(The spaceship crashes.)
Scene Two
The crew of the spaceship is now on the earth’s surface.
SCIENTIST/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?
SCIENTIST/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
(As the Commander distributes the directional crystals, we hear a pulsating chord.)
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 random destination?
SCIENTIST/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: The Commander distributes the glowing crystals among members of the crew. The Ship’s Doctor and Second Mate close their eyes and begin moving toward opposite sides of the stage. As they do, the pulsating chord begins to break up into its separate components, and the map of the galaxy fades away, replaced by images of the crew members’ visions.)
SECOND MATE:In my secret heart
All I ever wanted
Was to escape my 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 I say, “There, the sky!
It is I who have turned it to black!”
(The Second Mate 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”
(The Ship’s Doctor disappears into an image of India, masses of people gathered around her.)
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:In my secret heart
All I ever wanted
Was to continue the voyage
With vessel or without
Makes no difference to me
(The Scientist/First Mate is transported to a pavilion near the top of a Tibetan mountain .)
Scene Three
The Commander is left alone. She stares at the pulsating crystal in her hand.
COMMANDER:In my secret heart
I would have rather 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
(The Commander 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 that 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. 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 that hate
Mingle like blood between the sheets
When two worlds meet
(The commander is absorbed by the Natives, performing the Rites of Spring.)
ACT II
Scene One
Columbus, Isabella, Scientist/First Mate, Second Mate, Chorus. 1492. The Spanish court at Granada. The Queen and court bid Columbus bon voyage on his great expedition to the Indies.
CHORUS:Admiral of the Ocean Sea
Setting forth by our command
Don Cristóbal Colón
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 Cristóbal Colón
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
Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see
And his dominion shall be from sea to sea
And from the river even to the ends of the earth
And kings shall be thy nursing fathers,
And their queens your nursing mothers]
CHORUS AND ISABELLA:Amen
Scene Two
The “Amens” fade into the distance, as do Isabella and the court, literally. We find Columbus downstage, on board the Santa Maria. As his own “Amens” come to dominate the other voices, we realize we have been seeing a memory. In reality, he is far away on the sea, isolated, alone. It is October 11, 1492.
COLUMBUS:Amen, amen
(Columbus’s memories are violated by the Scientist/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
SCIENTIST/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 Verity
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]
SCIENTIST/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
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:Suban dos a los penoles
[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 who lacked faith while young
Remember instead, the example of Noah
Who faithfully awaited the coming birdsong
COLUMBUS:And in the hurlyburly of the waterworks
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
[West: nothing to the northward
Nothing to the southward]
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:¡Juegue el guimbalete para que la bomba achique!
[Work that pump brake till she sucks!]
ISABELLA:Still your doubt
s, Don Cristóbal
Let my song smooth 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!]
SCIENTIST/FIRST MATE:Amén Dios nos de buenas noches
Buen viaje
[Amen and God give us a good night
And good sailing]
ISABELLA:Don Cristóbal
It sometimes requires a woman
Trying to Find Chinatown: The Selected Plays of David Henry Hwang Page 18