Glass - Satyagraha (Paris, 2026)

Philip Glass - Satyagraha

Opéra National de Paris, 2026

Ingo Metzmacher, Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ilanah Lobel-Torres, Olivia Boen, Davóne Tines, Amin Ahangaran, Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Deepa Johnny, Nicky Spence, Nicolas Cavallier, Alexander Bozinoff, Lorrin Brubaker, Jeremy Coachman Jonathan Fredrickson, Marion Gautier de Charnacé, Awa Joannais, Héloïse Jocqueviel, Payton Johnson, Rachel McNamee, Mermoz Melchior, Adrien Ouaki, Ido Toledano

Palais Garnier, Paris - 14th April 2026

Satyagraha is a multi-layered work, which is perhaps to state the obvious since that's true of any opera, but I think even more so in the case of Glass’s second opera. There is a noticeable shift away from the more experimental Einstein in the Beach, but Satyagraha still remains unconventional in its format and presentation, using conventional but reduced groups of acoustic instruments (strings and woodwind, no brass or percussion) that almost imitate the rapidly played Philip Glass Ensemble keyboard arpeggios alongside scenes with actual electronic keyboard flourishes. Each one of the work's layers, musical and conceptual, are however necessary and completely true to the nature and intent of the message of the "truth force" (satyagraha) of non-violent resistance that it intends to put across in this medium; and indeed does so impressively, inspiring some spectacular stage productions over the years. The latest production at the Paris Opéra is no exception.

When I say layered, Satyagraha is layered in its whole conception, since it has complex conflicting ideas it wants to work through. Opera is the ideal medium for that of course, at the same time being flexible enough to allow Glass tremendous scope to innovate and remain true to his own voice. On one level the opera considers the dilemma of the warrior Arjuna in the ancient Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita as he is conflicted over his duty to join the battle or follow his own inner voice that rejects violence. On another level, Glass explores the influence of the work as the foundation of Mohandas Gandhi's movement of non-violent resistance through selected scenes from his life and applies it to how that message is taken forward through Rabindranath Tagore, Leo Tolstoy and Martin Luther King Jr. The music and singing provide another accumulative level to the emotional, philosophical and ideal truth force of non-violent resistance as a path to peace and justice, seeking to embody it less in narrative than in a trance-like meditation of the mantra-like delivery of the Sanskrit libretto.

Satyagraha already has these multiple layers built-in, but the stage production provides the opportunity for a creative director to add a few more and, based on past history of productions, such is the nature of the work and its subject that this opera can easily sustain them with overloading or detracting from its essential purpose. The spectacle of Phelim McDermott's production for the English National Opera (which I saw three times in its 2006/07, 2009/10 and 2021/22 seasons) which also transferred to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, adhered relatively closely to the journey of Gandhi in his path to resistance, or at least recognised it as the central focus of the work. In that production Constance De Jong's libretto taken from the Bhagavad Gita and sung in Sanskrit, was not subtitled or translated as it was believed (with some merit) that the work and its message could speak for itself.

The new 2026 Paris production directed and choreographed by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber would beg to differ and accordingly they take a different course through the work presumably towards the same end. That's somewhat in the spirit of the whole Krishna-Arjuna dialogue in the Bhagavad Gita that underpins the work, in which the eternal struggle between the individual self and the higher Godself is resolved through the imperative of putting aside doubt and just taking action. The directors then choose to ditch the outline structure as it relates to Gandhi and instead explore the Arjuna narrative, in the process even removing the names of the principal singing characters, reducing them to voice types. In this refinement of the work - that nevertheless takes nothing away from it - it becomes more of a spiritual journey and that is enhanced through the focus on movement and dance rather than dramatic action.

The premise of this version is then made relatively simple, taking its lead from the opening scene's dialogue from the Bhagavad Gita between Arjuna and Krishna on the eve of the war between the Kuruvas and the Pandavas royal families. The outcome of Arjuna’s actions become the motivating force through the remainder of the opera in this production to rise above the individual desires and seek a higher purpose and truth. Set in what looks like a kind of assembly hall or rehearsal room with raised platforms and doors to the sides - with Gandhi, Tagore, Tolstoy and King looking on from above - in the first scene of Act I: The Kuru Field of Justice, a soldier in modern military uniform is manipulated into the killing of his fellow man by dark forces, both internal and external. A stage at the back of the hall which remains dark, light occasionally cutting through the mist, suggests that this is a space for an internal, emotional or personal journey. But it's not enough for this to be just a individual struggle to come to terms with one's own personal demons; the man has to reconcile his own belief in truth and justice with the reality of the outside world and bring others along with him to believe in the power of non-violent resistance.

If there is one key phrase repeated throughout the libretto that might have inspired the directors and choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, it would seem to be the need to become "athletes of the spirit", as this is what is expressed in a production that aspires through movement and dance to match those heights of finding the truth force of Satyagraha achieved in the music and the singing. Glass's flowing rhythmic pulsating score for the opera is ideally suited for this approach, Glass having composed dance sections already for Lucinda Childs' choreography in sections of Einstein on the Beach and going on to create dance pieces for Twyla Tharp's In The Upper Room in 1986. Despite abandoning any traditional opera narrative, the ballet works just as effectively in the hands of Smith and Schraiber, each scene finding fresh ways to express aspects of the man in his internal struggle to reach a higher level, to be a better representative of what man can be in the battle with the corruption of the outside world. Figures then emerge out of the crowds and chorus to join and give strength to the movement.

The new Paris production of Satyagraha succeeds marvellously through its adherence to the spirit and spiritual element of the opera. In the central point of the opera, in Scene 2: Indian Opinion of Act II - Tagore (although the scene is no longer tied to the Gandhi narrative), the dancers step into a joined spiral of simple rhythmic dance steps in one of the most beautiful pieces in the production. It might look simple, but that's the beauty of it; it makes you feel like you want to get up and join them. That's also a quality within the work itself and within the deceptively simple repetitions of Philip Glass's music. In reality it's much more complex than it looks and sounds, in how it takes its time and builds, accumulating weight and meaning in its very structure and indeed movement, much more than just relying on words and narrative.

This is really Philip Glass’s Parsifal; a work that touches deep on what it means to be human and suffer in an imperfect world, but strive to achieve peace and inspire change that will save the world. Living in a time when injustice, inequality, violence and genocidal killing have reached new levels of obscenity, it's not hard to see how that sentiment is now more important than ever. What it also shows us - and which this production's focus and sense of movement highlights even more - is the history of the great names who have resisted through the years, showing that the battle needs still needs to be fought though the path of non-violent resistance. In that respect this is one modern opera that will endure because it has something that will always be relevant to the times, and it will always be important to remind ourselves of its message. Its form and conception are also key to its promise of longevity, the persuasive music showing how to rebuild and gain force though constant progression, reiteration and gradual change.

The unconventional orchestration and use of instruments - the orchestra essentially having to become an extended Philip Glass Ensemble without the same experience of performing this kind of fast flowing music of repetition and sudden changes - must present considerable challenges. The performance of the Paris orchestra under Ingo Metzmacher however was impressive and indeed persuasive, the delivery firm and seductive as it just washed across the Palais Garnier carrying everyone along with it. The singing likewise was extraordinarily good, as it can't but be in this opera, this time with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo coming from Akhnaten in the Glass 'Portrait Trilogy' to the principal (Gandhi) role here. Usually a high tenor part, Costanzo retained the sweetness of the timbre while still incredibly managing to cut through the ensembles and even (vitally) rise above the huge chorus scenes. All the voices and how they come across is important in Satyagraha and it couldn't have been better arranged and directed, all credit to chorus master Ching-Lien Wu. The dance choreography is stunning, but no more or less important than any other element, other than perhaps bringing a robustness that adds another dimension that further enhances the meaning of the work.

I remarked in my review of the Live in HD cinema broadcast of this opera at the Metropolitan Opera in 2011 that it seemed like Glass and this opera were finally receiving belated recognition, but with all nine performances of this new production of Satyagraha at the Paris Opéra selling out months ago (I was only able to pick up a return on the actual day of the performance), it's clear that both this uncompromising work and its composer have achieved a popular status that few could have imagined when it premiered in Rotterdam in 1980. I fully expect that that this production, like the hugely successful Phelim McDermott production, will be revived at some stage and see future new productions, but if you can't wait, a performance of this current run will be broadcast live on the pay-per-view Paris Opera Play (POP) streaming service on the 24th April.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play (POP)
Production photographs: Yonathan Kellerman, OnP

Glass - Satyagraha (London, 2021)

Philip Glass - Satyagraha

English National Opera, 2021

Carolyn Kuan, Phelim McDermott, Sean Panikkar, Musa Ngqungwana, William Thomas, Sarah Pring, Verity Wingate, Felicity Buckland, Gabriella Cassidy, James Cleverton, Ross Ramgobin

The London Coliseum - 28th October 2021

There aren't many contemporary operas by living composers that consistently draw audiences, but Philip Glass's Satyagraha is back this year for a third run (unless I've missed any) at the English National Opera, so I guess it must be popular. That's something I can testify to since it's also the third time I've been to see this production at the Coliseum in a well-attended close to sold-out theatre (in 2006/07 and 2009/10 seasons), not to mention even taking the opportunity to see the same production by Phelim McDermott when it was livestreamed from the Met in 2011 where I imagine it will also be regularly revived. 

Indeed it may be McDermott's production that makes this an attractive prospect. There's no question that the colourful and creative set pieces work well with the music, but in an opera that is without a conventional narrative, that is written in Sanskrit and is fairly abstract in its treatment and subject, it is not so easy to say why it works so successfully. It is surely more than just spectacle, although that is evidently part of it, and the manner in which the Improbable team scale up simple ideas made out of paper, cardboard and sellotape to great theatrical effect is definitely impressive.

In some ways the simple grandeur of Satyagraha (as opposed to the busy grandeur for example of McDermott's almost equally excellent work for Akhnaten) aligns perfectly with the purpose of the opera. Ostensibly it's an opera about Gandhi, one of the famous three early Glass portrait operas, but the real purpose of the opera is of course to express an idea, Gandhi's idea of Satyagraha; achieving justice, change and peace through the truth force of nonviolent protest. It's this idea and the expression of it through the opera, through the music of Philip Glass at the peak of his creativity and originality (other opinions on Glass may vary) that are undoubtedly brought out or supported in the stage direction.

It's interesting in the meantime, since my last viewing of this opera production, to have seen McDermott's Tao of Glass at the Theatre Royal in Manchester in 2019. A semi-autobiographical piece, in it the director himself explored his relationship with the music of Philip Glass - in a very "Improbable" way of course - and by staging it as something magical it proved to be much more effective and enlightening than any interview with the director. The music of Philip Glass, despite what some critics might think, can touch deeply and in its hypnotic way perhaps even achieve an almost spiritual awakening. Or that was true at least of McDermott's experience.

The music of Glass for Satyagraha strives to achieve that impact as well, and it is capable of putting forward its theme with no need of any directorial assistance. Without even narrative reference to it in Constance de Jong's libretto - which just takes texts directly from the Bhagavad-Gita, Gandhi's inspiration for Satyagraha - the opera nonetheless chronologically follows the development of this theme and the autobiographical progress of Gandhi's path of non-violent protest in South Africa and India in its outline stage directions. It's also laid out in the actual titles of the three sections of the three acts of the opera also refer to the idea of Satyagraha throughout history, from Tolstoy and Tagore through to Martin Luther King.

Act 1 scene 1 (The Kuru Field of Justice) starts as it means to go on, already putting everything into place. It opens with the solo unaccompanied voice of Mohandas Gandhi, turns into a duet with Prince Arjuna and then a trio with Lord Krishna, and soon involves a whole chorus as the warring families prepare to do battle. From a single lone voice, the message spreads into a whole movement that has purity and strength of purpose to find a better course of action than violence. The music increases accordingly from a simple cello pattern to full orchestration (the limits of the original production leaving no room for brass section with a Glassian keyboard used to fill out the sound). Similar patterns are used for each scene in the other acts, the rhythmic pulse always present, the changes a little more dramatically inclined and more sudden in this opera than the typical repetitive music-with-changing-parts early-period Glass.

Phelim McDermott finds a simple and abstract way to illustrate each scene, while keeping the characters in traditional period costume and Gandhi in his familiar robes. Each scene of Julian Crouch's set is almost like a tableau vivante, with limited movement yet enough to give a sense of the setting for the staging of protests. Like the music, the director takes the time to slowly let the scene build, uses newspapers (the importance of the Indian Opinion newspaper as a channel to Gandhi's spreading of his message with no outside influence over the content), sellotape and corrugated cardboard cutouts. These can expand out match the huge scale and ambition of the work, the subject and the musical progression, with giant puppet figures battling each other, people floating up into the heavens and Tolstoy, Tagore and King present in little mini tableaux high up at the back of the stage.

There is plenty to enjoy in McDermott's staging that makes this worth repeated viewing, and seeing a Glass opera live in a theatre is always a worthwhile experience. It's enough clearly to keep drawing audiences back to see revivals of this work (and I expect back to Akhnaten again in the future). Perhaps more than anything however what is attractive about Satyagraha is the appeal of the subject and the unconventional abstract approach it takes towards getting its message across.

Much has happened in the world since the opera was written in 1980 and indeed much has happened even since the first performances of this production in 2007, but all of it seems to chime with or validate the idea of a 'truth force' or a force for truth against the tyranny of injustice. From the protests in Hong Kong to Black Lives Matter and Climate Change Extinction Rebellion protests, whatever your contemporary reference, Satyagraha has a very persuasive message that change can be achieved through peaceful protest, through "people power". The opera invites you to share in that idea and as an audience feel a part of something noble and perhaps even achievable.

That was very successfully put across on the final night of the current run of Satyagraha at the Coliseum. Carolyn Kuan's handling of the orchestra was excellent, meeting the uniquely challenging and unconventional demands of this work. One other thing that has changed in the meantime since I last saw the opera is that despite ingrained prejudice and fear of a "woke agenda", it is probably no longer sustainable for Caucasian actors to take on roles like Mohandas Gandhi, particularly when a singer of closer and more authentic ethnicity like Sean Panikkar shows what can be done when given the opportunity. He sings the role superbly with a clear, bright lyrical tenor. Aside from Gandhi, while there are defined roles, individual performances are less critical than the role they play in the ensemble, and the power of the work was fully felt through each of the singers and the chorus.

Links: English National Opera

Glass - Einstein on the Beach (Geneva, 2019)

Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach (Geneva, 2019)

Grand Théâtre de Genève, 2019

Titus Engel, Daniele Finzi Pasca, Jess Gardolin, Stéphane Gentilini, Andrée-Anne Gingras-Roy, Evelyne Laforest, Francesco Lanciotti, David Menes, Marco Paoletti, Félix Salad, Beatriz Sayad, Allegra Spernanzoni, Roland Tarquini, Micol Veglia, Melissa Vettore

GTG Digital

You don't see a new production of Einstein on the Beach in an opera house programme very often but it's always an exciting prospect, even if you imagine that it's going to have a hard time to live up to its original visualisation and collaboration between its creators Philip Glass, Robert Wilson and Lucinda Childs. Glass's most experimental and original opera has already proven it is still a force to be reckoned with in revival, but if Einstein on the Beach is to ever have any kind of extended life - and despite the lasting impression it has made so far its legacy is by no means assured - it needs to be seen whether it can stand up on its own merit without the hand of its creators involved.

Knowing how to approach a new production is an unenviable task because one of the more unusual characteristics of Einstein on the Beach as an opera is that it doesn't exactly have a plot to follow. Despite its unconventionality and lack of adherence to almost any of the rules of what we consider to be essential to opera, it does however have most of the basic components in their purest form. It offers up music as purely music with no relationship to any dramatic or emotional context, it provides drama without a narrative, the words operating as mere text that convey little in the way of meaning, while the stage design and dance are there to provide a visual reference for the space and movement to add another dimension to the music. Einstein on the Beach is intended to be a spectacle for the eyes and the ears, a five-hour flow of rhythm and repetition, the audience invited to enter and leave as they liked. As this was something Philip Glass and his Ensemble were quite used to people walking out of some of their earliest performances, it made sense to make this an acceptable part of his first opera.

Somehow, whether it was the mere fact of hanging this all onto a title like Einstein on the Beach, or some of the imagery that Robert Wilson provided to work in conjunction with the music, the work seemed to acquire a significance of its own. Glass's music does have the ability to establish a strong bond with images, as evidenced by his collaborative efforts with Godfrey Reggio on the soundtrack for Koyaanisqatsi, which this opera is closer to in conception than the other operas in what would become known as the Portrait Trilogy (with Satyagraha and Akhnaten). It captures the pace of modern life, the rhythm of life itself, science, technology, progress, time, the repeated rhythms measuring out the idea of life changing gradually and almost imperceptibly over time but very much changing and gathering pace.

Since there are many ways of expressing that idea, Daniele Finzi Pasca and his company obviously find their own way to explore what Einstein on the Beach means and how it can be developed. The long ten minute opening Prologue, played as the audience are still entering the theatre and taking their seats, consists of three descending notes on an electronic organ repeated with slightly variations in the length, while a woman recites random numbers between 1 and 3000. You can find yourself searching for a pattern, and maybe even find one, but more than anything it creates a trance-like state where the mind is gradually cleansed of any such attempts at rationalisation or search for meaning. It just expects you to accept and appreciate the simplicity of three notes played together with random numbers recited and it is indeed utterly entrancing. A figure dressed like Albert Einstein then joins the woman during the first Knee Play (one of the connecting pieces between scenes) reciting meaningless cut-up text, the chorus then taking up a one-two-three-four repetition that speeds up to Glass's racing rhythms while a red shiny curtain billows behind them.

It sounds completely pointless in description yet utterly entrancing to watch and enter into a receptive rather than passive state that the music creates. This first scene hints that the director Daniele Finzi Pasca is following in the simplicity of Improbable, the production company of Phelim McDermott, a director with a strong affinity for Glass's music who often finds inventive ways of representing it on stage. Finzi Pasca creates a visual language of his own that reacts to the music and sets off other associations rather then rely on Robert Wilson's. There's no 'Train' scene, instead we have Einstein at a desk, dancers, a remote controlled toy plane, and possibly in reference to Vittorio de Sica's Miracle in Milan and Bicycle Thieves there's a floating bike on a wire, a woman in a wedding dress and a groom in white. All of this builds a loose visual narrative that the audience are free to bring together into a meaning of their own.

There's no 'Trial' scene either and some of the libretto monologues are cut or reduced to take the opera down from five hours to four. The 'Mr Bojangles' monologue is recited by a performer within a flickering glow of a rotating spiral array of neon pillars against a deep blue background (the closest this gets to iconic Wilson imagery) with figures moving walking across in slow rhythmic movements, the floating bike reappears as the scene transitions into a badminton game on beach with deck chairs for the 'Paris/All Men Are Equal' scene (although the 'Paris' text is moved to Act 4). A mermaid floats above and it is all observed on the beach by Einstein, which is as close to literal as this interpretation comes, but it also shows that this is a work that has imagery and ideas that are infinitely adaptable.

Any further description of the differences and disconnect between what we might expect to see is rather pointless, as you're doubtless beginning to grasp, since it doesn't illuminate any kind of narrative or conceptual coherence, employing images inspired by the music with no rhyme or reason. Cutting evidently has no real impact on any narrative or meaning, merely swapping some of the irritating nonsense texts for irritating ideas and nonsense of its own. There's no 'House', 'Spaceship' or 'Train' but there are Bullfighters and Buddhist Monks. The Compagnia Finzi Pasca production is what it is; music and visuals, shadow plays, projections, acrobatics, trompe d'oeil and fantastical images with a few recurrent themes mostly involving a kind of transcendental levitation, flying and floating (gravity?). It's not always gripping but that's the nature of this work, you are free to make up your own connections or not as you choose, and you can always (in theory) walk out during the bits when nothing much happens for ages (I zoned out at the appearance of bullfighters in Act 4 'Bed/Aria' here).

Familiarity with the music actually adds another level of fascination as you are anticipating the length of each repeated phrase waiting on the next change to kick in. It still holds you rapt, which when you consider that there is no narrative or meaning to grasp and a lot of repetition, is quite an achievement. That's a testament also to conductor Titus Engel, the orchestra made up of music students of the Haute école du musique de Genève and the indefatigable efforts of the chorus that they are able to keep this together for four hours without a pause. The challenges posed by Einstein on the Beach are like no other and seeing it performed like this really does underline what an incredible achievement it is.

But does the opera have the capacity to be renewed beyond its 1970s origins and outlive its creators? Well, personally I don't think the Geneva production is a patch on Robert Wilson's original, but evidently going ahead it's Wilson's contribution as co-author that is always going to be left behind. Whether there's any life left in Minimalism is a matter in the hands of posterity, but there seems to be little doubt that, as Phelim McDermott has demonstrated for his other operas, Philip Glass's music is capable of inspiring new and creative responses. It's the largely unchanging force behind this enormously original and still totally absorbing work of opera, and yes it still remains opera. Great opera endures and 45 years haven't been bad to Einstein on the Beach.

Links: Grand Théâtre de Genève, GTG Digital

Glass - Orphée (London, 2019)

Philip Glass - Orphée

English National Opera, 2019

Geoffrey Paterson, Netia Jones, Nicholas Lester, Sarah Tynan, Jennifer France, Nicky Spence, Anthony Gregory, Clive Bayley, Simon Shibambu, Rachael Lloyd, William Morgan

The Coliseum, London - 18 November 2019 

The Orpheus myth has been an inspiration to artists and musicians for centuries and, as the recent English National Opera series that includes Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice and Birtwistle's The Mask of Orpheus - but going right back to Monteverdi's L'Orfeo - it has often provoked some of the most fascinating and enduring works in the history of opera. Whether you consider Philip Glass's Orphée based on Jean Cocteau's movie of the same name is worthy of being considered on the same level, there's no doubt that it's an equally fascinating approach to the same subject, haunting, unconventional and admonitory in its outlook

More than just be inspired by Cocteau's film, having worked on a series of three works based on Cocteau's extraordinary films (Orphée, La Belle et la Bête, Les Enfants Terribles), Glass is clearly attracted to Cocteau's sensibility, having studies in Paris in the 1950s with Nadia Boulanger, immersed in the same bohemian artistic milieu of the Paris left bank that inspired Cocteau. Director Netia Jones alludes to that in the opening scene of the ENO's production where the young poet Cégeste is killed in a road accident, having Glass, Boulanger and early formative dream-like companions from Einstein on the Beach sitting in the cafe where the young man has just caused a disturbance and a fight.

There's a good reason why Glass, Cocteau and many other artists and poets are attracted to the myth of Orpheus as, among other themes, it touches on some fundamental questions about the role of the artist. Glass uses the original text from Cocteau's 1950 film Orphée as libretto, and although Cocteau's contemporary updating of the story departs considerably from the original Orpheus myth - as does The Mask Of Orpheus - in essence the themes are the same, probing the idea of obsession, with questions of mortality and immortality through one's works, with the need to transgress boundaries in order to ask difficult questions and find the inspiration that leads one to be creative.

Glass's music and the visual representation of it on the Coliseum stage captures this alternate view of reality superbly. Glass's usual swirls and arpeggios combine with the projections and overlays of sequences from the Cocteau film, matching the fluid dream-like mood of the subsequent events as Orpheus is led by the Princess into the world through the mirror, a world where the dead can live again. Orpheus struggles to reconciles this vision of another reality with the practicalities and realities of everyday life as a poet and as a husband. His relationship with the Princess however allows him to co-exist in the world of the living and the dead as a poet, without really being conscious of where his gift and muse lies.

Orphée (1991) comes at an interesting stage in Glass's musical development. It's less radical perhaps than his early Portrait Trilogy operas (Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, Akhnaten), but still quite experimental and within the familiar Glass idiom of minimalist music of repetition and changing parts. As well as looking to the influence of Cocteau, Glass would also attempt to tap into the similar creative experimentation from other artists like David Bowie (Low Symphony, 1992) and Allen Ginsberg (Hydrogen Jukebox, 1993), with varying levels of success. All of these projects however would push class into exploring different responses and techniques from symphonic arrangements to chamber opera and song cycles, to even scoring La Belle et la Bête (1994) as a live opera over a real-time projection of the Cocteau movie.

The methods employed in Orphée are perfect for the work, using the full text of the film as a libretto, allowing the music and setting of the text to explore and delve further into Cocteau's creation and vision. It doesn't so much seek to deconstruct the work, as this is a work that requires no deconstruction, nor does it act as pure soundtrack accompaniment. The film casts its own spell and you don't want to lose or negate that, and all Glass does is enhance and present it successfully in a new medium where it can be explored creatively and remain fresh. In a way it renders it in three-dimensions, keeping it alive and open to reinterpretation through the medium of performance.

Musically there might not appear to be a great deal of room for interpretation within the familiar rhythms of Philip Glass's music, but as his recent work with Phelim McDermott and Improbable on Satyagraha and Akhnaten has shown (and to an extent on Tao of Glass), it can be expressive and collaborative in its live interaction with a sympathetic stage production. What it does inspire, certainly in the ENO production is an imaginative response from director Netia Jones and set designer Lizzie Clachan to a visual presentation that does succeed in bringing out another dimension to the film, indeed essentially transforming it into 3D through creative set designs. Frames and props move on simple rope-pulled trolleys, reflecting Cocteau's rudimentary but eerily effective techniques, with projections onto blocks of backdrops make the war-torn cityscapes of the Zone indeed three dimensional.

And of course the live performances add a further dimension and character to the work. Conductor Geoffrey Paterson brings out the musical richness that is on offer in Glass's score for chamber orchestra enhanced with vibraphone and electronic keyboard. Set to Cocteau's text, there is inevitably a lot of 'talky' singing (something that is not greatly improved by the ENO's continued pointless policy that translates the original French text into English with no subtitles, which instead of making it 'accessible' actually manages to render it less intelligible), but there are some beautiful passages of vocal writing that bring stand-out performances from Jennifer France as the Princess, Nicky Spence as Heurtebise, Sarah Tynan as Eurydice and Nicholas Lester as Orphée. Once again, the ENO turn out to be great advocates for the operas of Philip Glass.

Links: English National Opera

Glass - Tao of Glass (Manchester, 2019)

Phelim McDermott & Philip Glass - Tao of Glass

Manchester International Festival, 2019

Philip Glass, Phelim McDermott, Kirsty Housley, Chris Vatalaro, David Emmings, Janet Etuk, Jack McNeill, Rakhi Singh, Katherine Tinker, Sarah Wright

Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester - 13 June 2019

Struggling to get my head around what exactly Tao of Glass was all about, the only word that came to mind during the interval was 'magical'. That's perhaps a rather unoriginal, overused and not particularly helpful choice of description, but thinking about it further, magical perhaps describes the uniqueness of the work. There's the fact that it's a site-specific piece and that it only has a limited lifespan of a run at the Royal Exchange Theatre during the Manchester International Festival, so it's ephemeral and of the moment as theatre should be (although I suspect that the Glass music may resurface in another guise later). There's also the way that it employs unconventional dramatic and musical elements to create something that is truly unique and deeply personal, related to its creators Philip Glass and Phelim McDermott.

There is also something that you can only describe as magical about the nature of the piece in the idea that the work is in fact the creation of the work. Phelim McDermott himself takes centre-stage - quite literally in the round of the Royal Exchange Theatre - and describes in the first half of the show his long running relationship with Philip Glass's music, first as a fan and later as a collaborator. Tao of Glass came about through the failure of a project they had been planning to work on, to bring to the stage In The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak. Sendak died before the project was able to get off the ground, so McDermott and Glass tried to find other ways of continuing their work together, and it's this that becomes Tao of Glass.

When I first heard about Tao of Glass, the outline description was that it seemed to consist of 10 musical pieces that would be staged by McDermott's company Improbable. The work has evidently evolved considerably in its development, still on-going at the time of its performances, the end result never set in stone but arrived at. One of the central images in the piece is that of the Japanese art of Kintsugi; of a perfect jar that is broken to pieces and then put together again with gold bonding. Essentially that becomes the image for the work itself, the dreamed perfection of a longed for project with Sendak dashed and then pieced together into something new and different.

Whether it's Glass's music that bonds the broken fragments of McDermott's script or the other way around isn't the question. What matters it that it creates a perfect new creation that neither could achieve quite the same way on their own. And it really does. It at least gives Philip Glass the opportunity to work outside traditional boundaries again. That's often where his best work is achieved, whether that's in opera, which he redefined by refusing to follow any conventional expectations with Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha and Akhnaten, or how he worked in collaboration to redefine the role soundtracks play in films like Koyanisqaatsi and Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. Lately Glass has been more conventional, even in his Bowie Symphonies, but it's clear that working with McDermott (on Satyagraha, Akhnaten and The Perfect American) has revived a new imaginative, instinctive and improvisational influenced approach to working again.

While there are some new dimensions added to Glass's (some might say limited) musical repertoire, Tao of Glass is very much McDermott's baby. He is the motivational force behind the concept and it's his personal experience that fuels the journey of the piece. Actually it is a collaborative effort even in this since a lot of it has to do with the director's relationship with Philip Glass and his music. Right from the start he talks about the discovery of Glassworks, about recognising Philip Glass walking through London during the opening of Akhnaten at the ENO in 1985 and following him through the streets of Covent Garden.

McDermott's picks up and joins other Kintsugi fragments into the narration, going right back to childhood reminiscence to consider where the fascination for the magic of the theatre came from. Strangely, it's the 'failures', the broken pots, that provide the strongest feelings; imagining the children's theatrical entertainment Billy's Wonderful Kettle that he never got to see, his imagination undoubtedly more wonderful than the actual show. There's even a puppet show 'trailer' outline for how the Sendak project might have looked. There's also the story of McDermott's broken glass coffee table that allegedly provides the title of the work. The piece is filled with seemingly random stories and anecdotes that nonetheless all seem to connect in unusual ways.

The stories may be simple, anecdotal, but they touch on deeper themes, themes that are relevant to many creators and artists. Where does music come from? Where does inspiration come from? McDermott talks about using meditation, flotation tanks, Taoism and the I-Ching to get in touch with and reach other levels of the subconscious, how to reach those other planes that evidently exist that we visit in dreams and perhaps its the same place people go to in a coma. McDermott describes experimenting with Glass, simulating a coma (insert obvious joke about Glass's music and comas here), that does manage to draw out an entirely new improvised sound and voice from the composer in his effort to reach and connect with the person in a coma state. It's reminiscent a little of Max Richter's Sleep, which evidently is a piece that strives to work on a similar plane direct to the subconscious.

That piece is replicated on a Steinway piano that has recorded the actual keystrokes of Philip Glass playing, and there's an eerie quality to the invisible presence of the composer playing over the keys, but the piece is far from disembodied and there's genuine feeling and reaching out in it. Elsewhere the ensemble plays music that is for the most part in the familiar Glass idiom of repetition and small changes, working hand-in-hand with the meditation and reflections of the narrative. Phelim McDermott, sitting in the audience like a regular theatre-goer at the start of the show before taking to the stage, delivers his story in a hugely engaging and entertaining manner by reaching to out the audience and connecting with them.

It's staged in true Improbable style, semi-improvised, using puppets, sheets of paper with musical notation and sellotape. There's nothing elaborate about the effects, but in conjunction with the music and the storytelling it does indeed exploit the capacity of theatre to create worlds. And not just create worlds, but somehow forge a connection from them through to the audience, creating an extra bond in an extension of the Kintsugi manner. If that's not 'magical' I don't know what is.

The real kicker however is the unexpected and unbilled late appearance of Philip Glass himself in person, stepping onto the stage at the conclusion to play the Opening from Glassworks on the piano accompanied by the ensemble. It's a fulfilment of McDermott's dream from many years ago; not just directing a Glass work, but truly collaborating and sharing a stage with him. And that's what Tao of Glass is all about, or one of the many things that it is about; defining our dreams, breaking them and then rebuilding them into something greater.

Links: Manchester International Festival

Glass - Akhnaten (London, 2019)

Philip Glass - Akhnaten

English National Opera, London - 2019

Karen Kamensek, Phelim McDermott, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Rebecca Bottone, James Cleverton, Colin Judson, Zachary James, Katie Stevenson, Keel Watson, Charlotte Shaw, Hazel McBain, Rosie Lomas, Elizabeth Lynch, Martha Jones, Angharad Lyddon

The Coliseum, London - 2 March 2019

36 years after it was first performed, it's still difficult to place Philip Glass's Akhnaten alongside either traditional or contemporary opera. Where it fits in Glass's repertoire is easier to identify. Akhnaten (1983) is the third part of the composer's Portrait Trilogy of operas, following Einstein on the Beach (1976) and Satyagraha (1980), three works still very much informed by Glass's experiments with minimalism or repetitive music with gradually changing parts. By Akhnaten we also see the composer move gradually away (with changing parts) from the rigid minimalism of his earlier works to incorporate more traditional forms and instrumentation, even if it still remains largely distinct from the classical idiom.

If it's still hard then to pin-down that 'in-between' cross-over period of Glass in the early eighties musically (for me personally his most interesting, creative and indeed even highly influential period, taking in his soundtracks to Mishima and Koyaanisqatsi), the visual presentation and performance aspect of any opera is vital to better assess the quality and nature of a work, and there Akhnaten aligns a little easier with a more traditional medium, albeit still (just about) within that cross-over experimental period that makes it more interesting. Essentially Akhnaten is Grand Opera, or the minimalist equivalent of Grand Opera.

Traces of the philosophy behind the artistic experimentalism of the New York scene of the 70s still remain in Akhnaten, not least Glass's early work with theatre director Robert Wilson and dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs. It's the overall concept or underlying philosophy behind the works in the Portrait Trilogy that are important and the influence that their central figures have over modern views on science (Einstein), politics (Gandhi) and religion (Akhnaten) are too expansive and intangible to be reductively made to fit a narrative.

Einstein on the Beach is the most abstract of the trilogy, Glass, Wilson and Childs collaboratively creating an environment for the music, theatre and dance to interact to create an alternative form of musical/theatrical narrative. Satyagraha is structured very differently, built around distinct real-life incidents in Gandhi's life, tying them to his influence on Tolstoy and Martin Luther-King and setting the whole thing to a libretto sung in Sanskrit and taken from the Bhagavad Gita. By the time we get to Akhnaten, there is still no clear or traditional narrative line to follow, but there is a linear progression of Akhnaten's coronation following the death of his father Amenhotep, his marriage to Nefertiti and his foundation of a new monotheistic religion.

The setting and ceremonial aspect of the situations (funeral, wedding, religion) perhaps makes it unavoidable, but in terms of presentation and performance, Akhnaten has less to do with the experimentation that informed Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha and resembles nothing so much as Aida. There's less of an effort to fit anti-war sentiments into a romantic melodrama narrative, and yet Akhnaten does have those qualities in its own peculiar way, and it certainly achieves an impact that is commensurate with Aida. Anyone who thinks that Glass's repetitive rhythms and arpeggios are mechanical and devoid of emotional content need only listen to the love duet of Act II to see that there is an expression as deeply romantic as any of the love duets and arias of Aida and Radamès.

After his spectacular new production of Satyagraha, it was inevitable that Phelim McDermott would be the director capable of putting a strong visual and thematic stamp upon Akhnaten. It proves to be one that not only matches the setting and period of the work in an otherworldly manner, but it works along with Glass's abstract presentation of the scenes that rely on ancient Egyptian texts and inscriptions, which are used not so much for 'authenticity' as for attaining an almost spiritual or transcendental dimension. In this Akhnaten's repetitive rhythms, marching beats and building crescendos are texturally much richer than the operas that precede it.

Another important quality to the presentation is simply engaging the audience's attention in the absence of any traditional musical or dramatic narrative; the audience still needs something to keep them amused during the long repetitive instrumental or chanted choral scenes that evidently are not subtitled (and wouldn't be all that more meaningful if they were). The idea of having a framing backdrop with posed figures like moving hieroglyphics is an obvious idea, and it does look spectacular. It doesn't strive for 'naturalism' otherwise it would (and indeed has in the past) just look like Aida. McDermott's stylisations, rather like the original English premiere of the work, go for an almost science-fiction world to emphasise the mysterious alien quality of ancient Egypt.

Other tableaux scenes are equally impressive in their lighting, colouration and movement, although for the latter McDermott relies too heavily here on jugglers; it's hypnotic for a few minutes, but nearly three hours of juggling routines is stretching it a bit. Those long building instrumental passages cry out for the kind of dance choreography Lucinda Childs would have provided or the abstract mood that Robert Wilson lighting and spacial geometrics might have produced. A troupe of jugglers throwing balls in the air only goes so far and certainly doesn't engage with the spiritual dimension that the opera aspires towards.

In terms of musical and singing performances however the ENO production is right on the mark. Akhnaten's arrangements have their own challenges and it can't be easy to balance those swirling keyboard runs with brass fanfares, flute and string arrangements, and get the choral and individual singers to weave through it all. Conductor Karen Kamensek however delivered a superbly hypnotic performance that hit the dramatic ceremonial high points and brought out the human emotional undercurrents superbly. Anthony Roth Costanzo really soars, his voice pure and otherworldly in this register to this type of score and Kate Stevenson is no less incredible alongside him. Rebecca Bottone also impresses as Queen Tye, the chorus are superb. With this kind of revival Akhnaten, like the other recently revived works in the Glass Portrait Trilogy, are proving to be special works that still hold a unique place in the world of opera.

Links: English National Opera

Glass - Einstein on the Beach (Châtelet, Paris - 2014)

Philip Glass / Robert Wilson - Einstein on the Beach

Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris - 2014

Michael Riesman, Robert Wilson, Helga Davis, Kate Moran, Antoine Silverman, Jasper Newell, Charles Williams

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Although both Philip Glass and Robert Wilson remain major figures in the world of opera, the 2012-13 revival of their groundbreaking collaboration Einstein on the Beach, first performed in 1976, represents an opportunity to see the more radical roots of both the composer and the stage director. Einstein on the Beach seems to have sprung more or less organically from their days as part of a community of experimental artists in downtown New York, a circle also frequented by choreographer Lucinda Childs. The work was never created with the notion of it being an opera. It was just an opportunity for a group of like-minded experimental artists to collaborate together.

The fact that it required a stage big enough to encompass this unusual project led to Einstein on the Beach being performed in opera houses, but in retrospect, the work is clearly a combination of all the key musical and theatrical elements that go into the artform. Einstein on the Beach is a true Gesamtkunstwerk in that respect. There are words, there are stage sets, there's music, there's dancing. There is perhaps however one notable element missing from what we would normally associate with opera. One major element - there's a complete lack of any traditional dramatic narrative in Einstein on the Beach. One would even be hard pressed even to find an overarching theme or a concept in the work, but it very much has a purpose nonetheless.

Einstein on the Beach would later be considered alongside the subsequent Satyagraha (Gandhi) and Akhnaten as the first of Philip Glass's three portraits operas, but there's even less of anything like a conventional portrait of Albert Einstein in the composer's first work. In place of a libretto, the words are seemingly random, repeated, cut-up and recited texts by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs, with solfege and numbers reeled out at dizzying speeds according to the changing rhythms of 'Music in Twelve Parts'-era Philip Glass. Rather than employ an orchestra or use traditional string instruments, the music is played by the Philip Glass Ensemble on electronic keyboards, with flutes, clarinets and saxophones. Albert Einstein also appears as a character who plays the violin during the 'Knee-Play' connecting segments of the opera.

To accompany each musical sequence with chanted and recited texts, Robert Wilson transforms the stage with shades of luminous blue lighting, uses geometric shapes for props and has figures strike angular poses as they move around within these scenes. Lucinda Childs' dancers work with the settings, holding poses and shapes, or whirl across and off the stage in response to the wild repetitive rhythms of Glass's music. None of this however adds up to anything like a progressive dramatic arc or character development. In fact, the audience are not even expected to sit through the complete five hours or so of a work without intervals, but are actually encouraged to wander in and out of the theatre whenever they feel like it. It's unlikely anyone taking a short a comfort break will really miss anything here.

Whether Einstein on the Beach is performance art that reflects or perhaps tells us something about order in the modern world, about the place that mathematics and technology play in our lives (in the precise arrangements of the music score even more than in any of the texts) is up to the individual viewer to determine. It is what it is. Music with changing parts, immersive theatre and dance in its purest form - music as music, theatre as theatre, dance as dance. It's left to the viewer to take it in, absorb it, feel it, experience it and make something more of it if they can. It can be hypnotic ('Train'), exhilarating ('Field Dance I') irritatingly dull ('Trial'), haunting ('Bed') and often humorous, but the combination of those experiments and complementary art forms, always progressing and changing, mean that it's an incredibly immersive and involving experience. It's not a "message" opera, it's not a story opera, it's something else, something alive and bursting with energy.

As a means of experiencing Philip Glass and Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach is also just about as pure and essential an example of both artists' work as you'll find in the music theatre world. It's a work that only really functions as it ought to in full performance. Critics and audiences reacted favourably when the show played at the Barbican in London, and it's tremendous to have the entire four and a half hour production recorded in High Definition at the 2014 shows at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

It comes across exceptionally well on the small screen, a spellbinding production of propulsive, hypnotic rhythms, voice and movement, with an exceptional cast who have to deal with some highly complex and physically exhausting arrangements. Some of the texts have been revised and replaced from the 1976 original, and the staging is perhaps a little more high-tech, but essentially this is very much in line with the original design and concept and it's a fine reminder of the experimental vitality of early Philip Glass. Robert Wilson's technique on the other hand hasn't changed that much.

The all-region compatible Blu-ray release has the benefit not only of a glorious High Definition presentation of Robert Wilson's exquisite lighting and colouration (the fine gradients of light and colour undoubtedly incredibly difficult to master for a video transfer), but the experience is enhanced through the uncompressed audio mixes. The surround-sound audio track of the DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mix in particular separates the vocal layering well. The BD comes as a 2-disc set in a hardcover book format case with a cardboard outer slipcase. There are no extra features on the discs, but the booklet contains interview excerpts from Glass, Wilson and Childs that explain how the work came to be created and how it has developed. There's also an essay on just what is unique and extraordinary about the work. There are no subtitles - as most of the texts are meaningless anyway - and there is evidently no synopsis. The chapter names and selection can be found from the pop-up menus while the disc is playing. 

Glass - Spuren der Verirrten - The Lost (Linz, 2013 - DVD)

Philip Glass - Spuren der Verirrten - The Lost

Landestheater Linz, 2013

Dennis Russell Davis, David Pountney, Bram de Beul, Sophy Ribrault, Jacques le Roux, Karen Robertson, Gotho Griesmeier, Martin Achrainer, Martha Hirshcmann, Matthaus Schmidlechner, Dominik Nekel, Elisabeth Bruer

Orange Mountain Music - DVD

The commission of a new opera by Philip Glass to open the new Landestheater at Linz in 2013 was a bold statement of intent. There would certainly have been a lot of expectation placed in the production and undoubtedly many different views about how to best achieve those aims (the Making of feature on this DVD recording of the World Premiere gives just a small indication of the challenges faced in the nerve-racking final days up to the premiere). It's doubtful however that the sprawling and largely incomprehensible Spuren der Verirrten would have been what anyone had in mind, but it has to be said that the work fulfils its remit perfectly and often impressively.

As you're dealing with a Peter Handke script as the origin for the libretto of Spuren der Verirrten (literally 'Footprints of the Lost'), I guess the question 'what is it about?' doesn't really apply. Or perhaps you don't need to look far beyond the title itself to grasp the essential theme of the work. It is indeed about the lost, and the opera takes a kaleidoscopic and somewhat abstract view of where we are as a society today, a lost society that has indeed just blindly followed in the footsteps of those lost before us. Act I broadly deals with a view of the here and now in an Austrian context (weather, borders and war are recurring motifs), with traditional dress worn and even a zither and Alpine horns played on-stage and included in the musical score. Act II draws in 'lost' figures from the Bible and mythology (Moses, Salome, Medea, Oedipus), while Act III attempts to resolve or at least come to an accommodation with the nature of being lost and just getting on with it.

On a more abstract or meta-conceptual level - and one that takes into account the creation of the opera itself as a commission to open a new theatre - you could also consider the theme of the Lost to be reflected in a group of abstract characters (they're only named A, B, C, D etc.) in search of a narrative. "We remain you and me, and me and you" says one lover to another in one of the sections and that is essentially it. That much we can say, but what else is true in the larger picture of where we fit into the world? Lost characters in search of a narrative does indeed reflect the question of art to find a broader sense of underlying meaning and context. "Who today is even worthy of a fate?" questions another character, "Time has become hollow and it has become impossible to play on the world stage" says another. By the end of the opera - one instigated by 'a member of the audience' taking to the stage - the chorus are in the orchestra pit and the orchestra are on the stage. Everyone is lost and we don't know what's going on, but look, isn't it still wonderful?, Spuren Der Verirrten seems to say.

Well yes actually, it is. While this kind of narrative can prove puzzling to an audience, it's perfect for the abstraction of music, and perfect for how Philip Glass traditionally approaches such material. Spuren der Verirrten is really no more abstract a piece than Einstein on the Beach, Glass unconstrained by narrative demands and writing music purely for the beauty of the theatrical experience alone. As such he's at his most lyrical, rhythmic and melodic here. It's almost like a 'Best of Philip Glass', with the flow of Einstein, the choral surges of Satyagraha, the swirling musical melodies of his Dance pieces and the pulsing narrative drive of Powaqqatsi (more so than Koyaanisqatsi). There's also something of The Voyage in the approach to a similar concept, and even some of the film soundtrack Glass of 'The Hours'. It's certainly a much more musically rich piece than the recent The Perfect American, but by the same token, it's not exactly anything new from this composer either.

The reason for the richness of melody and tempo is clearly a response to the variety of Spuren der Verirrten as a theatrical piece that incorporates a variety of short scenes, with occasional solo singing by characters who weave through the work, but more often as couples, and more often still in pure choral arrangements. It's dance however that is the dominant driving force of the work, both dramatically and musically. Connecting all these modes of expression and applying a narrative is partly down to the individual in the audience, but it's also a challenge for the director David Pountney to give a visual representation to abstract fragments of text, keep it flowing and make it all fit under one roof. The artistic, logistical and technical challenges are evident (and alluded to in the Making of feature on the DVD), but even though it inevitably looks a little cluttered in places, it does all come together remarkably well.

So, what's the point of it all?, you still might well ask. Well, getting back to the basics, the point is to put on a work at the Landestheater Linz that stands as a statement of intent, a commitment to the artform that puts everyone (not least the new theatre) through its paces and tests them to their limits. There is however a message of sorts at the conclusion of The Lost. "Being lost brings out the best in a person" and "leads to a fundamentally new beginning ...so they say". It's not an entirely convincing message, but in the context of the subject, it knows that there's no room for certainty. Philip Glass gives this expression the perfect accompaniment and provides Linz with a suitably grand, epic and ambitious work to open their new theatre.  It might not be great, but it's an impressive achievement nonetheless.

There is no High Definition Blu-ray release of Spuren Der Verirrten, but the dual-layer DVD is a perfectly good recording of the world premiere performance on 12th April 2013. The image quality is good, widescreen enhanced, and the audio track is Dolby Digital 5.0. The sound isn't studio quality perfect, and there is a fair amount of on-stage noise, but the recording, mixing and overall tone of the orchestral performance is fairly good. The 'Making of' feature runs to 40 mins, with bilingual English and German subtitles. Subtitles are in English and German only.