posted 09-19-2014 06:07 AM               

O Columbia will commemorate the tragic events surrounding the Columbia space shuttle in 2003. The opera will explore the Columbia's tragic fate from multiple perspectives including the control room at Houston's Johnson Space Center, a family waiting at Cape Canaveral in Florida, the astronaut crew on board the Columbia, and residents north of Houston who witnessed the fatal scene in the sky.

When I first heard that the Houston Grand Opera proposed to produce an opera about the Columbia disaster, I was appalled.

If HGO wanted a spaceflight opera, it would better be the moon landing of Apollo 11; or the successful story of Hubble repair; or the construction of the ISS. But not Columbia...

It put space exploration in a historical context. It used the point of view of a young person aspiring to be an astronaut. There was nothing neither maudlin nor titillating. At one point there were tears among the audience. It was powerful.

...I think it will be great. You should mark your calendar and go.

posted 09-23-2014 01:10 PM               

If you read Wayne Hale's blog, there were astronauts, managers and families in attendance at the reading.

posted 09-21-2015 04:36 PM               

'O Columbia' opera explores spaceflight in chorus with NASA

It is not unusual, given NASA's presence in the community, to hear of people in Houston singing the virtues of space exploration.

Those voices though, do not often take the form of opera.

That will change this week, when a collaboration between the Houston Grand Opera and NASA debuts "O Columbia" at the Revention Music Center in downtown Houston. The chamber opera examines the past, present, and future of the spirit of exploration using the 2003 loss of the space shuttle Columbia as a touchstone.

"One of the things that opera does really, really well is get at big ideas in a way that is both moving and open ended [such] that it can be both specific and also atmospheric at the same time," stated composer Gregory Spears. "In that sense, it felt right when talking about NASA in general and in the middle part of the piece about Columbia."

posted 09-24-2015 08:52 AM               

This was my first opera so I am not in the best position to review the composition or libretto, but to say that there was something powerful about contrasting an old art form with a future-focused theme.

The Columbia tragedy is handled very tastefully and with the respect one would hope. The accident is portrayed through the perspective of the opera's main character, a 16-year-old girl growing up in Houston who desires to fly in space someday. In this sense, the emotion of that day is captured without explicitly referencing the tragedy (the closest it comes is to repeat lines spoken by mission control during the earliest moments of the reentry).

The opera juxtaposes the 2003 loss with the 16th century loss of the Roanoke colony and a future mission into deep space. The message is that humans have and will continue to explore, even if that means the loss of life along the way.

The staging of the piece is very sparse, purposely. Director Kevin Newbury said during a post-performance talk-back that even if he had a million dollar budget, he would still choose to only use a twin bed, a record player and a couple of ladders, as he did for the production.

"O Columbia" will be performed again tonight and then the Houston Grand Opera hopes to stage it in other cities, though those plans are in their very early stages.

Here are several photos courtesy the Houston Grand Opera (credit Lynn Lane):