O Columbia

O Columbia is an opera-oratorio in three parts that examines the American spirit of exploration. We ride with Sir Walter Raleigh and a mysterious figure on the bow of his ship heading for the New World; we sit with a teenager as she experiences communion, and later, heartbreak, with a Columbia space shuttle astronaut gliding around the earth; and we travel with three astronauts to the far reaches of the solar system with Lady Columbia waiting at the edge. The work is a celebration of the identity of the American frontiersperson, an ode to America’s national mythology.