and

The Chabot Space and Science Center

Opera on Tap San Francisco

present

Xixoxa’s Spaceship

An Opera in Two Acts

Conception, Libretto, and Music by

Victoria Frances Young

Stage direction by Sophia Santulli

Premiere: March 2025 at the Planetarium of the Chabot Space and Science Center, Oakland, CA

CAST

  • Xixoxa Smith (pronounced SEE-so-say) · soprano

  • Samara · mezzo-soprano

  • Sully Smith · baritone

ENSEMBLE (3-6):

  • Voices of Nebula X-3

  • Shuttle security/shuttle passengers

  • Proxima Centauri tavern patrons

  • Space pirates

ABOUT THE OPERA

Xixoxa’s Spaceship is a science fiction space opera created specifically to take place inside the nontraditional performance space of a planetarium.  With an electroacoustic score that utilizes live singers and music, a prerecorded track on surround-sound system, and the planetarium’s all-encompassing, HD images of space, Xixoxa’s Spaceship is intended to be a metaphysical experience that does the closest thing possible to transporting audiences through the titular character’s spaceship from Earth to the unreachable yet unforgivably breathtaking cosmos up and beyond.  

Synopsis

Taking place several centuries from the present day, in an age where humanity has made great strides in technology and colonized planets and solar systems beyond our own, the opera begins and ends with Xixoxa Smith, is a bright university student on the cusp of a promising career. Upon the unexpected loss of a loved one, however, Xixoxa impulsively leaves her life behind to embark on a journey to find Nebula X-3, a mysterious and mostly unknown region in distant space rumored to be the physical manifestation of human afterlife.  She is joined by Samara, a former space pilot, who reluctantly agrees to chauffeur Xixoxa to Nebula X-3 on her beloved spaceship.  When a bizarre incident finds Xixoxa and Samara permanently stranded in space with no one else but each other, Xixoxa finds her soulmate in Samara, as well as her last chance to relive and correct past mistakes.  Xixoxa’s Spaceship is an exploration of a young woman’s dissatisfaction and abandonment of home in search of freedom, love, or something undefinable, and takes place in the only space more expansive and beautiful than the depths of her own mind: the universe.