Drawing from letters of Galileo and his family, and various other documents, the story concerns Galileo’s development of the hypothesis that the earth revolved around the sun and his relationship with his daughter. The opera opens with Galileo as an old, blind man after the trial and Inquisition for his heresy and proceeds backwards through time. It explores his piousness as well as his break with the church, and expands into the greater, oscillating relationship of science to both religion and art, reaching its end with Galileo -as an infant- watching an opera composed by his father.
Galileo Galilei guide sections
