Flight (opera)
Flight is an English-language opera in three acts, with music by Jonathan Dove and libretto by April De Angelis. Commissioned by Glyndebourne Opera, Glyndebourne Touring Opera premiered the work at Glyndebourne Opera House in a production by Richard Jones on 24 September 1998. It received its Glyndebourne Festival premiere with the original cast at Glyndebourne Festival Opera on 14 August 1999, and was revived at Glyndebourne in August 2005. De Angelis took part of the inspiration for the plot from the true-life story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who lived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, for 18 years, unable to exit the airport terminal. Some of the same real events surrounding Nasseri were later used in the story for the 2004 Steven Spielberg film The Terminal, independently conceived after the opera. Dove has also arranged music from Flight into an orchestral suite, titled Airport Scenes, for concert performances. This suite was first performed in Warwick on 7 March 2006. Roles Plot The setting is the departure lounge of an unspecified airport. The opera takes place over the course of one full day and the following morning. Act 1 In the airport, all of the characters are en