3-act opera with prologue and epilogue in English, Spanish, Latin
Libretto by David Henry Hwang, based on a story by Philip Glass
First performance: 12 October 1992. "The Journey is an allegory about the spirit of exploration, about the placeless state in which we find ourselves every time we encounter different cultures. What makes people travel, what do they seek? Characters from the past and the future find different answers, including a scientist who travels across the universe in a wheelchair. Christopher Columbus embodies all those eternal wanderers - Ulysses, Noah, the Flying Dutchman - who have been cursed or called to wander, alone on their ship, obsessed with an idea; his figure symbolically sums up all travellers - those who are driven by the desire to explore, to question."
Philip Glass, 1992