Man on the Moon (opera) Man on the Moon (opera) Man on the Moon is a 2006 television opera in one act by Jonathan Dove with a libretto by Nicholas Wright. It relates the story of the Apollo 11 moon landing on 20 July 1969 and the subsequent problems experienced by Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. The opera, about 50 minutes long, was commissioned by Channel 4 and first shown on 26 December, 2006. The director was Rupert Edwards. In 2007, it won the Opera Special Prize at the 2007 Festival Rose d'Or in Lucerne, Switzerland. The opera chronicles the
The First Men in the Moon makes the air above it weightless and shoots off into space. Bedford sees in the commercial production of cavorite a possible source of "wealth enough to work any sort of social revolution we fancied; we might own and order the whole world". Cavor hits upon the idea of a spherical spaceship made of "steel, lined with glass", and with sliding "windows or blinds" made of cavorite by which it can be steered, and persuades a reluctant Bedford to undertake a voyage to the moon; Cavor is certain there is no life there. On the way to the moon, they experience