Voyager

In Voyager, two worlds collide, when a woman in the old Wild West era, sitting alone in her prairie-house, waiting for her ever traveling cowboy husband to return home, is confronted with a mysterious object that falls literally from the sky into her life.

This mysterious object is the Golden Record, as found on board of the NASA Voyager satellites, launched in the 1970's to explore the planets and travel on into deep space. Both satellites have such a record on board, containing speech, sounds, music and images of Earth's science, nature and culture. The rear side of the record shows a diagram of how to use the included playback device in order to get the sounds out.

In this story however, the satellite has made a miraculous return to Earth, across space and time, and crashes into the ground next to the old farm house. The woman finds the record, in shards after it's hard landing, and regards it a message from her long gone man. Putting the pieces together on her old Gramophone player, a wild collage of archive images, sounds and music is unleashed.

Searching for signs, she finds back old memories and makes a journey through her own past. Finally she comes back to reality and it comes to light that her husband is dead. She is just in the process of getting over his departure, and this absurd find helps her to find reconciliation.

Voyager was commissioned by Gaudeamus for the first Gaudeamus Music Theatre Festival in Amsterdam.

Arnoud Noordegraaf: libretto, composition, video

Marieke Koster: mezzo soprano

Hester Jolink: decor

Luuk Vierhout: Light

Ianthe Elbers: dress

Synco Scholvinck: video editor

commissioned and produced by the Gaudeamus Foundation
for the Gaudeamus Music Theatre Festival, 2004

© Arnoud Noordegraaf — for score and media get in touch