A Trip to the Moon

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10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1 – rocket launch! The world is getting smaller, people are getting lighter, they are literally floating, simply flying through the air. Get ready to land. Turbulence, please hold on! Rum, noise, fieeep. The astronomers tumble out of the rocket and land on dusty gray ground. It's lunar here. Incredibly lunar. Andrew Norman's opera is a space adventure inspired by the first science fiction film ever made. And indeed, the filmmaker himself is there: Georges Méliès accompanies the astronomers to capture their journey to the moon with the camera. But what they would find 384,400 km from Earth they would not have dared to dream of. Unintelligible sounds ring out at them between the dust and craters: aei I ouaei I o ... do people live here?