2001

80 minutes

chamber opera in 2 acts
libretto by Jonathan Lennie

Death - counter-tenor

Vladimir Komarov - baritone

*Yuri Gagarin - tenor

*Valentina Komarova - soprano

*Premier Kosgin - bass

*Technician - tenor

*chorus members

fl. (picc./a.fl.) cl.in A (b. cl in B)hn. (dbl. tam-tam) tpt in B flat (tri)tbn(dbl.thunder sheet) perc. (vib. mar. crot. tuned gongs

sd. bd. tamb. timp. s cym. t-t. roto-tom, tom-toms. thunder sheet. referee’s whistle.flex. tri. rain stick. pno. (cel). acoustic guitar (electric guitar. maracas and 2 flex).vln. vla. vlc. db.

Introduction

The work concerns the true story of the dramatic flight of the
Soyuz 1 in 1967: a Russian spacecraft rushed into service before the safety checks were complete. The space race was in full swing and Russia’s President Brezhnev was determined to have a man
in space to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Twelve weeks earlier, three American astronauts had been killed in a training accident - the space race was now very serious and it was against this background that Soyuz 1
was launched.

The solo mission was commanded by Colonel Vladimir Komarov.
He was aware of the particular danger of this mission, as his
back-up pilot Yuri Gagarin (the First Man in Space) had tried to
stop the flight but had been stifled in his efforts by the KGB.

Things went wrong almost immediately, such that within hours Komarov’s wife was brought to Mission Control to speak privately with him. Then the Prime Minister, Kosygin, spoke with the cosmonaut and was reduced to tears by the pilots stoicism.

On his 19th orbit, Komarov managed to align his craft to the correct re-entry trajectory by putting the Soyuz 1 into a spin. At four miles out his main parachute failed to deploy, so, now traveling at over 400 miles an hour, he released the emergency parachute...