Galileo Galilei at CCM Philip Glass’s opera Galileo Galilei is now onstage at CCM. Dubbed the father of modern science by Albert Einstein, Galileo was acclaimed throughout Renaissance Italy as a leading astronomer and mathematician, as well as the inventor of the first timepieces and telescopes. He ran into trouble with the Catholic Church’s Roman Inquisition in 1616, when he was forced to recant his theory of heliocentrism — the earth revolving around the sun. Galileo maintained his silence as well as his devotion to the Catholic faith but in 1633, he was again tried for heresy with harsher consequences: his works were forbidden to be published and he was condemned to house arrest for the rest of his life. The opera opens in 1642 with a blind Galileo on his deathbed, recalling his life through 10 brief scenes that run backward in time.
"It’s important for us to be discussing these tensions, particularly in this country where there have been any number of restrictions placed on scientific endeavor and artistic expression."