By William R. Wineke
Special To Channel 3000

Madison Opera is earning some well-deserved kudos for courageous programming and Thursday night's performance of the Philip Glass opera, “Galileo Galilee,” is a good example of why that is.

First of all, to perform any opera by Philip Glass takes some courage. Appreciation of the music of the American composer is a learned quality, one which my wife possesses and which I don't. The guy isn't into tunes.

To stage the opening night performance on a Thursday takes some more courage. That gamble also paid off. The opening night performance was sold out, as is Sunday's performance. Tickets are still available for 8 p.m. performances Friday and Saturday.

The storyline includes 10 scenes, beginning with Galileo, blind and near death, reviewing his life and, then, moving backward through his life. The performance is in one act that runs 90 minutes without intermission.

The opera is helped considerably by the fact that the singers and the orchestra performed beautifully.

Tenor William Joyner takes the role of the older Galileo and bass-baritone John Arnold plays the scientist as a younger man. Each of them is new to Madison Opera and each of them manages to hold the interest of the audience.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer DeMain is not new to Madison Opera. The UW-Madison sophomore plays the role of Galileo's daughter, Sister Maria Celeste. She has a moving voice and a happy stage presence that contrasts with the rather brooding image of her stage father.

Midwinter operas are performed in the small-venue Playhouse theater in the Overture Center and utilize a small orchestra, in this case, 13 well-known Madison musicians conducted by Kelly Kuo. Since the score, vintage Glass, basically consists of a few notes played over and over for 90 minutes, they all did a remarkable job. My wife did not think the score was boring. She likes Philip Glass.

And, to be honest, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

The set is interesting, basically three large circles, one for the floor, one for the backdrop and one for the ceiling, on which images are projected, beginning and ending with images of the nighttime sky.

The costumes were simple, but evocative of the plot and the singing was not only pleasurable but – and this isn't always true in operas, even those sung in English, understandable. The production does use subtitles but they really weren't necessary.