In the intimate Newmark Theatre.
Can you imagine? What it must have felt like? To believe—to know!—that it was the earth that revolved around the sun and not the other way around! To stand against the prevailing thought of the entire world!
We meet the famous astronomer on his deathbed, blind from looking sunward so often, and are guided backwards through his life. Back as the Church strips him of his freedom, back as he kneels to recant his work, back as he is declared a heretic.
All the way back to his childhood as he enjoys an opera written by his father about—of all things—the magical story of planetary figures.
An intimate and touching telling of a great man and his tumultuous times, by one of the greatest composers of our time.
Sung in English with projections above the stage.
| Featuring the Portland Opera Studio Artists | |
| Maria Celeste / Duchess Christina | Lindsay Ohse |
| Old Galileo | Richard Troxell |
| Younger Galileo / Salviati | André Chiang |
| Maria Maddalena / A Scribe | Caitlin Mathes |
| Cardinal #1 / Oracle #1 | John Holiday |
| Pope Urban VIII / Cardinal Barberini / Simplicio | Nicholas Nelson |
| Sagredo / Marie de’Medicis / Eos | Anne McKee Reed |
| Cardinal #2 / Servant / Oracle #2 | Matthew Hayward |
| Cardinal #3 / Priest | José Rubio |
| Conductor | Anne Manson |
| Stage Director | Kevin Newbury |
| Costume Designer | Sue Bonde |
| Scenic Designer | Curt Enderle |
| Lighting Designer | Don Crossley |
Drawing from letters of Galileo and his family, and various other documents, this opera retrospectively journeys through Galileo's life. Opening with him as an old, blind man after the trial and Inquisition for his heresy, it explores his religiosity as well as his break with the church, and expands into the greater, oscillating relationship of science to both religion and art, reaching its end with Galileo—as a young boy—watching an opera composed by his father.
Galileo Galilei is the 18th opera by Philip Glass. In ten scenes, it is adapted from the life of the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) accused heretic by the Inquisition.
THE ORGINS OF PHILIP GLASS' GALILEO GALILEI
(S + M)3G = Opera, where S = Science, M =Music and G = Genius
“After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well.”
—Albert Einstein
Galileo was a poet. Maybe not the best poet, but certainly a competent amateur. His interest in the form and his forays into the writing of it lent his prose a lyrical bent, full of apt metaphors, his arguments clear and persuasive. His thought experiments are entertaining and vivid. Once understood, it is hard for the reader to argue with them, even if there is no definitive proof of their truth. Consider:
“Shut yourself up with some friend in the main cabin below decks on some large ship, and have with you there some flies, butterflies, and other small flying animals. Have a large bowl of water with some fish in it; hang up a bottle that empties drop by drop into a wide vessel beneath it. With the ship standing still, observe carefully how the little animals fly with equal speed to all sides of the cabin. The fish swim indifferently 22 in all directions; the drops fall into the vessel beneath; and, in throwing something to your friend, you need throw it no more strongly in one direction than another, the distances being equal; jumping with your feet together, you pass equal spaces in every direction. When you have observed all these things carefully … have the ship proceed with any speed you like, so long as the motion is uniform and not fluctuating this way and that. You will discover not the least change in all the effects named, nor could you tell from any of them whether the ship was moving or standing still. In jumping, you will pass on the floor the same spaces as before, nor will you make larger jumps toward the stern than toward the prow even though the ship is moving quite rapidly, despite the fact that during the time that you are in the air the floor under you will be going in a direction opposite to your jump. In throwing something to your companion, you will need no more force to get it to him whether he is in the direction of the bow or the stern, with yourself situated opposite. The droplets will fall as before into the vessel beneath without dropping toward the stern, although while the drops are in the air the ship runs many spans. The fish in their water will swim toward the front of their bowl with no more effort than toward the back, and will go with equal ease to bait placed anywhere around the edges of the bowl. Finally the butterflies and flies will continue their flights indifferently toward every side, nor will it ever happen that they are concentrated toward the stern, as if tired out from keeping up with the course of the ship, from which they will have been separated during long intervals by keeping themselves in the air. And if smoke is made by burning some incense, it will be seen going up in the form of a little cloud, remaining still and moving no more toward one side than the other. The cause of all these correspondences of effects is the fact that the ship's motion is common to all the things contained in it, and to the air also. That is why I said you should be below decks; for if this took place above in the open air, which would not follow the course of the ship, more or less noticeable differences would be seen in some of the effects noted.”
This is how Galileo described the principal of relative theory in his famous 1632 book Dialogue Concerning Two World Systems. It is clear, concise, full of humor, and readily accessible. Galileo was excellent at making his science accessible, and it was perhaps this that, late in life, would run him into trouble with the Catholic Church.
Galileo was also a painter. His beautiful sepia washes of the phases of the moon as he observed it from his exciting new telescope made the pitted surface of the moon real to people, who had always been taught of the incorruptible smoothness of her glassy face. He cared only for the truth of his observations, not for the philosophical and metaphysical implications of his pronouncements. The moon had long symbolized the incorruptible purity of the Virgin Mary. To some, pointing out the pockmarked face of the moon was tantamount to impugning the Mother of God.
And Galileo was a musician. His father, Vincenzo, was a famous lutenist and member of the Florentine Camerata, which is credited with inventing opera as an art form. His brother was a brilliant lutenist as well, and Galileo, as reported by his friends, could keep up with any professional musician. Music was one place where his passion for mathematics and science could be put to good use helping his father (also a passionate mathematician and curious man) develop the modern tuning system. Together, father and son spent countless hours disproving the reality of Pythagorean and Ptolemaic tunings to music in practice and touting the benefits to music of our modern equal temperament. In Vincenzo’s heated publications, which attacked the proponents of the older science of tuning, we hear the future echoes of his son, attacking his Aristotelian rivals.
Of course, what Galileo is most famous for is being a scientist and mathematician. But it is useful to remember that he was also an artist. His art was brilliantly and inextricably tied to his math and science at a time when artists were newly mastering perspective, geometry, trigonometry, optics—there were far fewer barricades between human endeavors, and art, science, philosophy and morality commingled freely. It is fitting, then, that another “renaissance man,” musician (and philosopher and mathematician by education) Philip Glass should choose to write an opera about him.
Science, philosophy and math have always been an integral part of the man that Philip Glass is. Fifty years ago, the young man majored in mathematics and philosophy at the University of Chicago, and, in fact, busied himself with recreating Galileo’s experiments with balls on an inclined plane. A lifetime later, he was recreating the scene on stage in an opera. Galileo has been with him all his life. When asked, “Why Galileo?” he replied:
“…I have reflected at length on his personal drama. And then today his is a highly topical figure. Scientific discoveries, such as cloning, involve moral decisions, and as such open the way once more to the interference of religious authorities. Moreover, I have always been impressed by the fact that Galileo concluded his earthly existence as a blind man. Undoubtedly this led him repeatedly to relive all the stages of his life in his imagination.”
It was with this idea of Galileo as a blind old man, sitting next to a window opening onto a night sky, his telescope pointed to the heavens, that Glass approached playwright Mary Zimmerman. Glass was interested in Zimmerman, because, “‘Accessibility’ isn’t a bad word for her.” And, in keeping with Galileo’s desire for his elegant, beautiful vision of God’s universe to be accessible, they have created an opera of his life that honors his desire for the simplest, broadest, most logical solution to natural observations, his ability to present science in an artistic way, and his deep and abiding faith. Because Galileo was a faithful man. His biggest argument with the Church and the Aristotelian theories of the world was that it put God’s creation in a box that didn’t match the clear observation of natural phenomena, and denied the loveliness and cleverness of the actual creation. “The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven. Not how the Heavens go.” For Galileo, science and religion were not mutually exclusive.
This was another goal of Zimmerman’s. Unlike Bertolt Brecht’s famous and highly political play about Galileo, the opera is not a polemic on science versus religion. Zimmerman focuses on Galileo’s journey to his beliefs—he did not defy his Church idly. 23 In order to arrive at why Galileo faced the Roman Inquisition, Zimmerman and Glass wanted to show us the beauty, excitement, and—dare I say it—fun of science. So there is a lot of science in this opera. Galileo’s experiments with inclined planes has its own joyful recreation in Scene Six of the opera.
The structure of the opera is unique, and underscores Glass and Zimmerman’s desire to create a hopeful vision of what could be a dreary proposition. Galileo did, after all, go blind and die under house arrest after being forced to recant his heliocentrism. Again, though, for Zimmerman it wasn’t simply about the outcome, it was about how he got there—his faith both in God and what he could see with his eyes. We start at the end and work backwards. We see what he lost and then we see what he gained, knowing all the while what it cost him.
Unlike Glass’ larger operas about great men (Einstein on the Beach, Akhnaten), Galileo Galilei is not a monumental work. It is short at an hour and a half, but it explores the big questions. Zimmerman says, “It’s asking … ‘Where do we come from?’ ‘Does the adult already exist in the child?’” It looks at a man who changed how we look at the world, and hopefully, it aims to broaden our perspective of that man, seeing him through the lenses of all of his talents, a satisfying blend of music, poetry, art and science. How very fitting.
Philip Glass (1937- )
 | Through his operas, his symphonies, his compositions for his own ensemble, and his wide-ranging collaborations with artists ranging from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen to David Bowie, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times. The operas—Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, Akhnaten, and The Voyage, among many others—play throughout the world’s leading He was born in 1937 and grew up in Baltimore. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School and in Aspen with Darius Milhaud. Finding himself dissatisfied with much of what then passed for modern music, he moved to Europe, where he studied with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and Quincy Jones) and worked closely with the sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar. He returned to New York in 1967 and formed the Philip Glass Ensemble—seven musicians playing keyboards and a variety of woodwinds, amplified and fed through a mixer. The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed “minimalism.” Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures.” Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry. Or, to put it another way, it immersed a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops. There has been nothing “minimalist” about his output. In the past 25 years, Glass has composed more than twenty operas, large and small; eight symphonies (with others already on the way); two piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra; soundtracks to films ranging from new scores for the stylized classics of Jean Cocteau to Errol Morris’s documentary about former defense secretary Robert McNamara; string quartets; a growing body of work for solo piano and organ. He has collaborated with Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Yo-Yo Ma, and Doris Lessing, among many others. He presents lectures, workshops, and solo keyboard performances around the world, and continues to appear regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble. —Courtesy of Tim Page (www.philipglass.com) |
Kevin Newbury - Director
Previously at Portland Opera: Nixon in China (2008)
Kevin Newbury is a theatre and opera director based in New York City. Kevin’s work has been produced throughout North America and, most recently, in Europe.
 | Kevin Newbury - DirectorPreviously at Portland Opera: Nixon in China (2008)
Kevin is especially committed to developing new work. He has directed the world premieres of several plays and musicals in New York City, five of which have been published or recorded for commercial release. Kevin’s work in opera includes collaborations with many top American composers, including Ricky Ian Gordon and Pulitzer Prize winners John Adams and Lewis Spratlan. Kevin is currently developing a new musical with Jeremy Schonfeld and Nicole Parker, a new opera with composer/lyricist Todd Almond, and a new opera with Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce. Kevin has enjoyed repeat engagements with several leading American opera companies, including Minnesota Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Portland Opera, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He has also directed for Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, L’Opéra de Montréal, the San Francisco Symphony, Glimmerglass Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, New York City Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Opera Colorado, and Houston Grand Opera. Upcoming engagements include new productions for Bard Summerscape, Portland Opera, Minnesota Opera, Virginia Opera, and Central City Opera. Kevin was born and raised in Maine and attended Bowdoin College and Oxford University.
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Anne Manson - Conductor
Previously at Portland Opera: Orphée, 2009
Renowned American conductor Anne Manson wins acclaim around the world for her ability to draw the best performance possible from the players and singers with whom she works, whether they be at the rarified level of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, or students just learning their craft in her bi-annual opera engagements at the Juilliard School.
| Anne Manson - ConductorPreviously at Portland Opera: Orphée, 2009Renowned American conductor Anne Manson wins acclaim around the world for her ability to draw the best performance possible from the players and singers with whom she works, whether they be at the rarified level of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival, or students just learning their craft in her bi-annual opera engagements at the Juilliard School. Reviewers recognize her “exemplary” leadership in crafting performances of both precision and passion. To read the rest of Anne Manson's biography, visit her website. |
Richard Troxell - Old Galileo
Tenor
Previously at Portland Opera: Candide in Candide (2002);
B.F. Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly (2005); Macduff in Macbeth (2006); Don Jose in Carmen (2007); Alfredo Germont in La Traviata (2008)
Richard Troxell's beautiful lyric tenor voice has been thrilling audiences wherever he has sung on stages around the world and in the United States.
 | Richard Troxell - Old GalileoTenorPreviously at Portland Opera: Candide in Candide (2002); |
Linsay Ohse - Maria Celeste / Duchess Christina
Soprano
Described as “sparkling” by Opera News, American soprano Lindsay Ohse is making several house debuts this season, including the lead role of Marie in La Fille du Regiment at Wichita Grand Opera.
 | Lindsay OhseSopranoPreviously at Portland Opera: The 2010 season began with her mainstage debut in Die Zauberflöte at the Sarasota Opera, where she “delivered the Queen of the Night's arias with panache" according to the Wall Street Journal. She then participated in the prestigious Santa Fe Opera young artist program, again having the opportunity to sing Queen of the Night, and she was rewarded for her work in Santa Fe with the 2010 Agnes M. Canning Award. To learn more about Lindsay Ohse, visit her website |
André Chiang - Younger Galileo / Salviati
Baritone
Previously at Portland Opera: Soloist in the Big Night Concert (2011)
Baritone André Chiang is from Mobile, Alabama. His opera credits include: Sciarrone in Tosca, El Gallo in The Fantasticks, Masetto in Don Giovanni (Shreveport Opera)...
 | André Chiang - Younger Galileo / SalviatiBaritonePreviously at Portland Opera: Soloist in the Big Night Concert (2011)
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Nicholas Nelson - Pope Urban VIII / Cardinal Barberini / Simplicio
Bass Baritone
Previously at Portland Opera: Soloist in the Big Night Concert (2011), Don Inigo Gomez in L’Heure Espagnole (2011), Armchair/Tree in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (2011), Mandarin in Turandot (2011)
 | Nicholas Nelson - Pope Urban VIII / Cardinal Barberini / SimplicioBass BaritonePreviously at Portland Opera: Soloist in the Big Night Concert (2011), Don Inigo Gomez in L’Heure Espagnole (2011), Armchair/Tree in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges (2011), Mandarin in Turandot (2011)
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John Holiday - Cardinal #1 / Oracle #1
Countertenor
Portland Opera Debut
In repertoire encompassing George Frideric Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto to Jonathan Dove’s Flight and beyond, countertenor John Holiday’s expressive and richly beautiful voice has made him an increasingly sought after artist, possessing a “vocal instrument that threatens to equal the name artists in his range.” (Herald Times)
 | John Holiday - Cardinal #1 / Oracle #1CountertenorPortland Opera Debut
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José Rubio - Cardinal #1 / Priest
Baritone
Previously at Portland Opera: Mercury, La Calisto (2009); Marullo, Rigoletto (2009); Schaunard, La Bohème (2009); Policeman, Orphée (2009); Baron Douphol, La Traviata (2008)
Internationally acclaimed Baritone José Rubio has quickly established himself as an important young artist, performing at major and regional venues across the country.
 | José Rubio - Cardinal #1 / PriestBaritonePreviously at Portland Opera: Mercurio, La Calisto (2009); Marullo, Rigoletto (2009); Schaunard, La Bohème (2009); Policeman, Orphée (2009); Baron Douphol, La Traviata (2008)
Internationally acclaimed Baritone José Rubio has quickly established himself as an important young artist, performing at major and regional venues across the country. Equally comfortable in the concert hall as on the operatic stage, Mr. Rubio recently made his Carnegie Hall Recital Debut which was met with great acclaim. The Opera Insider proclaimed that the "...recital was nothing short of stellar." describing the performance as "...an hour of intensely passionate singing and playing. It could have gone on forever without complaint." |
Matthew Hayward - Cardinal #2 / Servant / Oracle #2
Baritone
Previously at Portland Opera: Ramiro, L'heure espagnole (2011); The Grandfather Clock / The Black Cat, L'enfant et les sortilèges (2011)
American lyric-baritone, Matthew Hayward, is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most versatile young artists of his generation.
 | Matthew Hayward - Cardinal #2 / Servant / Oracle #2BaritonePreviously at Portland Opera: Ramiro, L'heure espagnole (2011); American lyric-baritone, Matthew Hayward, is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most versatile young artists of his generation. He is the winner of the 2009 Grand Concours de Chant-Gerard Souzay Tribute and was featured in concert at the Salle Cortot in Paris in November 2009. He also was given a 2009 Encouragement Award form the Gerda Lissner Foundation. Over the past two seasons, Mr. Hayward’s engagements have included creating the role of Marquis de Brisaille in the World Premiere of David DiChiera’s Cyrano at the Michigan Opera Theatre, Gregorio in Roméo et Juliette with the Baltimore Opera, Count in Le Nozze di Figaro with Washington East Opera, Schaunard in La Bohème with the Princeton Festival and Syracuse Opera, Marcello in La Bohème with Skagit Opera, Dancaïre in Carmen with at Opera New Jersey, Schubert’s Mass in G with the City Cleveland Chamber Ensemble, and Le Bret in Michigan Opera Theatre’s student performance of Cyrano. Next, he performs the Black Cat and the Grandfather Clock in L’enfant et les sortilèges and Ramiro in L'heure espagnole at Portland Opera, and Ko-Ko in The Mikado at the Syracuse Opera. Mr. Hayward has enjoyed a close association with the Aspen Music Festival and has sung recitals there featuring the works of Duparc, Schubert and Weill, performances of Ravel’s Chansons Madécasses, Schumann’s Spanisches Liederspiel and a Leonard Bernstein Gala with Broadway star Judy Kaye. Recently in concert, he was personally invited by Maestro Julius Rudel to debut with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Virginia Arts Festival, where he sang an all Kurt Weill Gala with soprano Angelina Réaux. Mr. Hayward’s other concert repertoire includes Handel’s Messiah, Brahms’ Requiem, Mozart’s Missa Brevis, Beethoven’s Organ Solo Mass, Fauré’s Requiem, Mendelssohn’s St. Paul, Mahler’s Wayfarer Songs and Orff’s Carmina Burana. Mr. Hayward was a finalist in the 2007 Albanese-Puccini Foundation International Vocal Competition. He has performed under such distinguished conductors as Julius Rudel, John Moriarty, David Briskin, Sarah Jobin, Jeffrey Rink, Beatrice Affron, Dean Williamson, David Zinman and Keith Lockhart. A Seattle native, Mr. Hayward completed his Bachelor and Master of Music studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. http://www.pinnaclearts.com/artist.php?id=636 |
Anne McKee Reed - Sagredo / Marie de'Medici / Eos
Soprano
Previously at Portland Opera: Shepherdess / The Bat / The Owl, L'Enfant et les sortilèges, (2011); Satirino/Il Destino/Furia 1, La Calisto, (2009); First Spirit, The Magic Flute (2007); Jennie Hildebrand, Street Scene, 2005
 | Anne McKee Reed - Sagredo / Marie de'Medici / EosSopranoPreviously at Portland Opera: Shepherdess / The Bat / The Owl, L'Enfant et les sortilèges, (2011); Satirino/Il Destino/Furia 1, La Calisto, (2009); First Spirit, The Magic Flute (2007); Jennie Hildebrand, Street Scene, 2005
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Caitlin Mathes - Maria Maddalena / Scribe
Mezzo Soprano
Previously at Portland Opera: Soloist in the Big Night Concert (2011); Kate Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly (2012).
Mezzo soprano Caitlin Mathes is from Dayville, Connecticut. Her opera credits include: Frog/Hen in The Cunning Little Vixen, Graduate in Street Scene (Chautauqua Opera Theatre)...
 | Caitlin Mathes - Maria Magdelena / ScribeMezzo SopranoPreviously at Portland Opera: Soloist in the Big Night Concert (2011); Kate Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly (2012). Mezzo soprano Caitlin Mathes is from Dayville, Connecticut. Her opera credits include: Frog/Hen in The Cunning Little Vixen, Graduate in Street Scene (Chautauqua Opera Theatre); Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro (Opera Theater and Music Festival, Lucca, Italy); Idamante in Idomeneo, La Marchande in Les Mamelles de Tiresias, Ruggiero in Alcina, Lady with a hat box in Postcard from Morocco, Ottavia in L’incoronazione di Poppea, Bianca in Lucrezia Project (College Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati); Secretary in The Consul, Dorabella in Così fan tutte (Ithaca College). She was a member of the Young Artist programs at San Francisco Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Chautauqua Opera. This season Ms. Mathes will sing Kate Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly, Maria Maddelena in Galileo Galilei and Paquette in Candide. Learn more about Caitlin at her website |
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Galileo Galilei Video Montage
Galileo Galilei Scene 2: Recantation
In this video Galileo Galilei librettist Mary Zimmerman speaks about Philip Glass' groundbreaking career, and talks in depth about working with Glass on Galileo Galilei. This interview was conducted when Philip Glass received a 2010 Opera Honors Award from the National Endowment for the Arts .
Listen to the Music
Unfortunately there are currently no commercial recordings of Philip Glass' Galileo Galilei.
Schedule
Mar 30, 2012
Friday 7:30 pm
Friday 7:30 pm
Apr 1, 2012
Sunday 2:00 pm
Sunday 2:00 pm
Apr 3, 2012
Tuesday 7:30 pm
Tuesday 7:30 pm
Apr 5, 2012
Thursday 7:30 pm
Thursday 7:30 pm
Apr 7, 2012
Saturday 7:30 pm
Saturday 7:30 pm