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Space

Âé¶¹´«Ã½ recommends Jennifer Walshe: Zero-gravity opera

The books, TV, games and more that Âé¶¹´«Ã½ staff have enjoyed this week

By Bethan Ackerley

26 February 2025

Jennifer Walshe

Jennifer Walshe

Blackie Bouffant

I won’t pretend to know much about opera, but was hooked by the radio show , on the BBC World Service recently. It previews an as yet untitled work by Walshe (pictured above), a professor of composition at the University of Oxford. She is writing the opera with Mark O’Connell as librettist – he won the Wellcome Book Prize in 2018 for his exploration of transhumanism.

The opera is set on Mars and is about female astronauts. How might music develop in the noisy environment of a Martian base? As well as ordinary…

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