On Saturday, August 6, 6,125 audience members filled Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for a free performance, the immersive multi-media premiere of the Hubble Cantata. A collaboration between the composer Paola Prestini, librettist Royce Vavreck, and lead Hubble Telescope astrophysicist Mario Livio, the hour-long work featured a 100-person chorus and 20-person ensemble with two star Met soloists: baritone Nathan Gunn and soprano Jessica Rivera. The dramatic work featured a real-world human plot to accompany the saga of the life of a star, narrated by Livio, and the black and white photography of Sasha Arutyunova was projected on a translucent screen in front of the orchestra and chorus. Audience members were given cardboard Virtual Reality headsets and asked to download an app on their phones; the work’s climax was near the end, when the audience was asked to put on the headsets and activate their VR app, placing themselves in a 360-degree world of Hubble Telescope images.
