HUBBLE Man and Machine - Oratorio - 2. Part Two – Triumph of Machine

Part Two – Triumph of Machine

Scene One:

(Golden light and images of star clusters start the scene)

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0619a/

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/heic0715a.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/cluster-collision.html

 

No. 21 - Coro con Fugato

 

CORO:

What mighty hand at work unseen,

Like Archimedes with his lever,

Has shifted the world over clean,

Despite doubt by both non and believer!

 

If ever man has done something,

If ever made a dimple-like mark,

Now his hours grow in finding

The prison of his world is not so stark!

 

FUGATO:

Great the hand that wrought the cosmos –

Great the hand that worked the machine –

Great the mind that thought the cosmos –

Great the mind that fixed the machine!

 

(The gold light transforms into pinks and blues as images of the Eagle Nebula comes into focus)

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0506b/

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1033a/

http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9544a/

   

 

No. 22 - Recetetivo

 

COUNTERTENOR:

Through ingenuity and mighty work,

Hubble as machine touched the human heart.

As the functions set, the first icon shot

Came to us in November, Ninety-Five.

The Eagle Nebula caused us to gasp –

Such beauty six thousand light years away.

This crucible of star formation gained,

The press dubbed ‘the pillars of creation.’

At fifty seven trillion miles tall,

In calm pink light, the highest column bathes.[1]

 

(Images transform into the Lagoon Nebula)

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo9638b.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/potw1120a.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo9638a.jpg

 

 

No. 23 - Recetetivo

 

TENOR:

And soon we saw the Lagoon Nebula –

Constellation of Sagittarius –

A full five thousand light years away,

In size: one ten by fifty light years,

With funnel core made of star pumping out

A radiant pink of VU heat.

Within it, large blocks of ‘Bok globules,’

Form inverting wisps of new star life. [2]

 

(Images of the two Nebulae blending together)

 

No. 24 - Corale

 

CORALE:

Who knew our imaginations

Weren’t fit to the task –

That when we thought constellations,

Our wildest was only tame?

 

In awe and frank fascinations

Our heads bow and ask –

Have we now our constellations,

In wonders too great to name?

 

 

No. 25 - Aria

 

SOPRANO:

Never in his whole existence

Had he been so profoundly stirred.

The face haunted him as some

Imploring, beauteous, impassioned

Ideal Madonna haunts

The ever-baffled artist –

As the mystic face thus rose

Before his fancy’s sight.[3]

 

The strongest and fieriest emotions

Defy all analyzed insight.

We see the cloud,

And feel its bolt –

But science only idly essays

Critical scrutiny to how

That could become charged,

And how the bolt so stuns.

Just so with every

Motion of the heart.[4]

 

(recap: “Never in his whole existence…” etc)

 

(darkness – end of Scene One)

 

   

Scene Two:

(Light focuses on the Sombrero Galaxy, M104)

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo0324i.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo0328a.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo0328b.jpg

 

 

No. 26 - Cavatina

 

CONTRALTO:

In celebration

Let us recognize

From the crucible

To fully formed systems,

This is how matter

Shapes itself to our view.

 

 

No. 27 - Recetetivo

 

TENOR:

This, the Sombrero Spiral Galaxy,

Has at the center of its budding core

An unseen super massive black hole

Only deduced in the Nineties from

The data sent back from Hubble’s eye.

Edwin Hubble himself used the redshift

To know how fast these objects moved from him –

Eleven hundred kilos a second,

While inclined dark dust forms it equator.[5]

 

 

No. 28 - Coro

 

CORO:

As the vine flourishes,

And the grape empurples,

Close up on the very walls

Of a cannoned fortress,

So do the sweetest joys,

And the very seeds of life,

Grow in the jaws of its peril.[6]

 

(The images progress to Bode’s Galaxy, M81)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Messier81_highres.jpg

http://blog.lexjet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/M81_Bodes_Galaxy.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Messier_81_HST.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/heic0710g.jpg

 

 

No. 29 - Recetetivo

 

CONTRALTO:

The perfect spiral of Bode’s Galaxy

Is twelve million light years from us beyond

The constellation Ursula Major.

Called by many the ‘Grand Design’ spiral,

Its well-defined arms swim back to a core

That contains seventy million times more

Weight, material, mass as does our sun.[7]

 

 

No. 30 - Duetto con Corale

 

CONTRALTO:

Sometimes in mystical quietude

Of long country nights –

Either banded round

By thick-fallen December snow

Or resolute white August moonlight –

We unconsciously throw ourselves

Open to the soul’s atmosphere

Where ineffable hints,

And undefined half-suggestions,

People the air like snowflakes.[8]

 

TENOR:

If when the mind roams –

Up and down the ever-elastic

Regions of evanescent invention –

Some definite form or feature

Can be assigned to

The multitudinous shapes

It creates out of

Dissolved prior creations,

It might attempt to hold

At least some shadowy reason.[9]

 

CONTRALTO and TENOR:

Falling still the quiet

Upon the yet unemptied space –

Make room for the heart’s riot

To stillness, there to receive grace.

 

CORALE:

Make we open to it

The heart’s as yet unexplored space –

Where we find room for it

To stillness, there to receive grace.

 

(together at recapitulation)

 

(darkness – end of Scene Two)

 

 

Scene Three:

(As the soloists gather stage left front, the image slowly appears of a small gray box. As they progress into No. 31, the box enlarges to cover most of the still blank screen)

 

No. 31 - Quartetto a capella

 

SOPRANO, CONTRALTO, COUNTERTENOR and TENOR:

For where the deepest words end,

There music begins

With its super sensuous

And all-confounding intimations.[10]

 

(The brooding black hole at the center of galaxy M87 appears in the box)

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo9201b.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo9201a.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo9423a.jpg

 

 

No. 32 - Recetetivo

 

SOPRANO:

However cruel the fact may be – that which,

With all compact hand creates, it also

Contains the means to wipe the slate anew.

Galaxy M-Eighty-Seven is such.

Edwin Hubble was the first to recognize

The very spin of galaxies means that

Something at their core is consuming them.

The center of M-Eighty-Seven is

A super massive black hole with speeds of

One thousand kilos a second. Its jet

Reaches five hundred light years out in space,

And moves five times quicker than light itself.[11]

 

 

No. 33 - Coro a Trettzo

 

CORO:

Sucked within the maelstrom,

Man must go around.

Strike at one end, a row,

No matter how long,

Billiard balls in contact,

And the farthestmost

Will start forth while the rest

Seem no blow was struck.[12]

 

CONTRALTO and TENOR and COUNTERTENOR:

So through long generations,

Previous and past,

Whether of births or of thoughts,

Fate strikes present man.

 

Idly he disowns the blow –

Because, he felt none,

For like a ball in line,

He passed the strike along. [13]

 

(recap: “Sucked within the maelstrom…” etc)

 

(images slowly transition to galaxy NGC 4261)

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo9814o.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo9547a.jpg

 

No. 34 - Recetetivo

 

CONTRALTO:

Galaxy NGC-Four-Two-Six-One

Is devoured by a massive black hole

Four hundred millions times our solar mass.

It’s only sixty thousand light years wide,

But its jet is eighty eight thousand light years

From tip-to-toe. Within its dark passage

Is possible reincarnation –

Transmutation to the ninety percent

Of the universe that is dark to us.

 

 

No. 35 - Scena a Coro

 

COUNTERTENOR:

Recetetivo:

There is a dark, mad mystery

In some human hearts

Which sometimes, during the tyranny

To usurper mood,

Leads them to be all eagerness

To cast off the most

Intense beloved bond as hindrance

To usurper mood.

Attaining what caprice it wants,

Then the beloved bond

Seems to hold no essential good

To usurper mood.

 

Aria:

Lifted to exalted mounts,

We dispense with all the vale,

Endearments we spurn –

Kisses are blisters –

Forsake forms of mortal love,

We emptily embrace that

Boundless, unbodied air.

 

We think we are not human –

We become as immortal gods –

But again, like the Greek gods,

Prone we descend back to earth.

Glad to be uxorious once more –

Glad to hide these god-like heads

In bosoms of too seducing clay.

 

(recap: “Lifted to exalted mounts…” etc)

 

CORO:

Weary with the invariable Earth,

The restless sailor breaks free

Of every restraining arm

And puts to sea in height

Of tempests that blow off shore.

 

But in long night watches he curses fate

As the one who put him there –

And thinks of his hamlet-home

And the maid that there waits

With thoughts of him lost at sea.[14]

 

(The Coro ends piano, and as it concludes, the images dissolve back to the small gray square it started the scene with – end of Scene Three)

 

 

Scene Four:

(During No. 36, the square slowly resolves itself in Hubble’s Deep Field Image and grows to fill the screen)

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/heic0611b.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/heic1219b.jpg

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/potw1244a.jpg

 

No. 36 - Cavatina a Duetto

 

TENOR and SOPRANO:

Glorified be his precious memory,

He who first had chance to say,

The gloom most deepest proceeds the day –

Whether to the utmost bounds

This saying will prove itself as true –

Enough that it will hold so

Within bounds of earthly finitude.[15]

 

 

No. 37 - Recetetivo ed Arioso

 

SOPRANO:

Choose a blank square of the universe –

Like peering through a dime-sized keyhole from

A spot some seventy-five feet away –

Set the camera for a long exposure

And then see nothing, some astronomers thought.

Surely what mattered has been already seen.

But ‘empty’ in Hubble’s Deep Field images

Found ten thousand galaxies for its dime,

Starting right back to the near border of time.[16]

 

Arioso:

Say what some poets will,

Nature is not so much

Her own ever-sweet interpreter,

As the mere supplier

Of that cunning alphabet

Whereby, selecting as we please,

Each man reads his own

Peculiar lesson according

To his own peculiar

Mind and mood.[17]

 

 

No. 38 - Recetetivo ed Arioso a Duetto

 

TENOR:

Now, a new generation promises –

The James Webb Space Telescope will be set

A million miles from Earth and from the light

That moon and Earth reflect constantly.

Within the heart of Webb will be a mirror

At nearly three times larger than Hubble’s,

It will see planets orbit distant stars.[18]

 

CONTRALTO:

Edwin Hubble died quietly one day.

A blood clot in his subtle mind claimed him

On an autumn day in Nineteen Fifty Three.

He died a perfect man – without enemies –

Loved by collogues, family and strangers.

His dog would keep their regular routine;

Wait at the window before noon and six –

His eyes trained on the road to the house.

Never one to care bout the phone, he

Now pestered to hear the voice on the line.

Mrs. Hubble would hold the receiver down,

But when the dog heard it wasn’t him –

Lost, with lowered ears, he’d drift back to the window.[19]

 

TENOR and CONTRALTO:

Unending as the wonderful rivers

Which once bathed the feet

Of the primeval generations,

Still remains to flow.

Fast by the graves of all succeeding men,

And by the beds of all now living –

Unending, ever-flowing

Runs the soul of man.

Fresh and fresher,

Further and still further

Run thoughts eternal.[20]

  

 

No. 39 - Recetetivo ed Aria

 

COUNTERTENOR:

What happens to our heroes? Hubble should,

With all affecting kindness, be brought down.

A ticker tape parade – a home within

The hallowed halls of the Smithsonian –

But, no. Is it not a mistake to let

An immortal thing die ignominiously?

Falling star though it may yet become,

Machine, like man, dies the leader of his field.

 

Aria:

Now immortal things only

Can beget immortality.

For the endless duration

Of the human soul,

It is impossible to kill

Compunctions arising

From having cruelly

Injured a departed

Fellow being.

So too, is the profoundest

Vault of the human soul.[21]

 

As a statue, planted

On a revolving pedestal

Shows now this limb,

Now that: now front: now back:

Continually changing,

So does the pivoted

Statued soul of man

Turned by the hand of truth –

Lies only never vary.[22]

 

(recap: “Now immortal things only…” etc)

 

 

No. 40 – Finale – Corale ed Quartetto a Coro ed Fuga

 

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/potw1152a.jpg

 

CORALE:

Master of the quiet,

Unquestioning universe,

Extinguish the riot

Locked in our minds’ search.

 

SOPRANO:

All profoundest things

And emotions of things…

 

TENOR:

Are preceded

And attended by silence.

 

COUNTERTENOR:

What a silence

Is that which the pale bride…

 

CONTRALTO:

To the question

Solemn precedes “I will.”

 

SOPRANO and TENOR:

In silence too

The wedded hands do clasp.

 

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo9935c.jpg

 

COUNTERTENOR and CONTRALTO:

Yea, in silence

Each child is born on Earth.

 

SOPRANO, CONTRALTO, COUNTERTENOR and TENOR:

Silence is the general

Construction of the universe.

Silence the invisible

Laying on of the divine Pontiff’s

Beseeching hand upon the world.

 

CORO:

Silence is at once the most

Harmless and most awful thing

Of inscrutable Nature.

It speaks of the full reserved

Forces of fate and Nature.

Silence is the only voice

We’re allowed to hear.[23]

 

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/heic1401a.jpg

 

CORALE:

Master of the quiet,

Unquestioning universe,

Extinguish the riot

Locked in our minds’ search.

 

SOPRANO:

Nor is august

Silence confined to things…

 

TENOR:

Touching or grand

But like the air, silence…

 

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/potw1315a.jpg

 

COUNTERTENOR:

Permeates all

With magical powers…

 

CONTRALTO:

Like the first steps

Of every journey tried.

 

SOPRANO, CONTRALTO, COUNTERTENOR and TENOR:

Silence is the general

Construction of the universe.

Silence is the invisible

Laying on of the divine Pontiff’s

Beseeching hand upon the world.[24]

 

CORALE:

Master of the quiet,

Unquestioning universe,

Extinguish the riot

Locked in our minds’ search.

 

http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/screen/opo0202a.jpg

 

TUTTI:

At a solitary

Traveler’s first setting forth –

Silence will clear the path.

As before the world was –

It was silence brooded

On the face of the waters.

 

FUGA CON TUTTI:

It speaks of the force

Resounding in Nature –

Silence is the voice

Ringing forever! [25]

 

 

(darkness – Fine dell’oratorio)