The Andrée Expedition

The Eagle as Andrée called his balloon. Photo courtesy of the Grenna Museum.

Can you imagine a world with our GPS?  Some of you probably can remember using maps, but can you remember a world where the maps were still being created?  It has been a little over a century since the age of exploration and yet that time when parts of the map were blank and brave or crazy men risked their lives to discover new places still captures the imagination.

This summer VTOP will take you back to 1897, the year that Solomon Augustus Andrée, Nils Strindberg, and Knut Fraenkel attempted to explore the unknown arctic region in a hot air balloon.  Their journey ultimately proved fatal, but 33 years later their journals, diaries, and camera were found.  Composer Domonick Argento used those documents as the libretto for The Andrée Expedition, a gorgeous and compelling musical journey

The Andrée Expedition will be directed by Cynthia Stokes and our Music Director will be Laurie Rogers, who was the amazing pianist behind Orpheus and Euridice last year.  Our design team includes Liliana Duque Piñeiro, who brilliantly designed the set for Orpheus and Jeff Bruckerhoff who did the lighting.  We will also have projection designer Peter Torpey join us to create our Arctic world.

More details will be forthcoming, so please stay tuned.

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