Queer Talk - Britten Pears love letters

Queer Talk : Homosexuality in Britten's Britain, an exhibition running until 28th October 2017, hosted, appropriately, at the Red House in Aldeburgh, where Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears lived together for much of their relationship of nearly 40 years.  Fifty years after the decriminalization of homosexuality in this country, it's hard to imagine how pervasive anti-gay attitudes once were, but remember we must, for intolerance is still around, and, in an increasingly bigoted world, growing once again. Even the slightest hint of scandal could destroy a man's career in those benighted days, but Britten and Pears were never intimidated.   They weren't the kind of people who'd do parades, but neither did they betray their nature.  By being themselves fairly open, they showed the world that gay men were part of society, deserving respect. With quiet courage and integrity they stood up for what they believed.

All his life, Britten opposed bullying.  At school, where he was apparently raped, he didn't like the system. He became a pacifist for similar reasons, having observed how  nations and political parties can bully each other. Unlike Tippett, who went to prison, Britten helped the anti-Nazi war effort by non-violent means.  He was blacklisted in the US, ironically by J Edgar Hoover, who may have been in the closet.  Was Hoover a model for John Claggart?  Please read my article Britten and the FBI : love match ? here . 

Far from being invisible, homosexuality was a sensitive issue, but publicly discussed.  The exhibition Queer Talk focuses on two extraordinary works that Britten created against a backdrop of widespread debate on homosexuality: the 1951 all-male opera Billy Budd  and the extended solo vocal work Canticle I ‘My beloved is mine and I am his’ (1947) an open declaration of Britten’s love for Pears. Also on display are letters by Alan Turing, manuscripts and edits of EM Forster’s homoerotic novel Maurice and photographs of Noël Coward and his long-term companion Graham Payn.

Please also read my article  "A Homosexual Story" : Gerald Finzi on Billy Budd  from five years ago. Billy Budd is a whole lot more than a "homosexual story" since it predicates on Captain Vere;'s moral and ethical dilemmas, so beware narrowing the interpretation of the opera. It's not really  about Billy but about Vere, who in many ways is Britten himself.  Incidentally, Finzi was no homophobe. By the standards of the time, he was an outsider too, being vegetarian, holistic and mystical.  

The love letters between Britten and Pears have been public for decades, and in 2016 were collected in a single volume and published in full.  Read more here.. Britten was a pack rat who saved everything, and in later years was acutely aware that his life would be scrutinized in great detail.  By saving the letters, Britten and Pears were making the statement that their love was not something to hide, but to cherish. A heart warming read for anyone, gay or straight.

Kurt Masur and Leipzig, his greatest achievement.

Kurt Masur has died, aged 88. Masur was much, much more than a conductor. He transformed his city, his nation and the world. Would Germany be united today without the movement that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall? Would the Iron Curtain still hold sway? The cataclysmic events of 1989 were only 26 years ago, but seem to have been forgotten, by too many.  To truly honoure Masur, we need to appreciate Masur the man, and what shaped him.

Masur was born in Brieg (Bryzg) in Lower Silesia, once part of Germany, now part of Poland.  That might mean nothing, but it's this background of war, ethnic cleansing and exile that affects people.  Christoph Eschenbach was traumatized, but he was only 5. Masur, who was 18,  could understand.  Masur's career was built on the rock-solid foundations of German Democratic Republic music-making. In the DDR, the traditions of German music remained resolutely untouched by what was happening elsewhere. The regime was repressive, but it also resisted capitalist pressure, maintaining a superb music education system, which supported the industry so it could do what it did best, without having to cave in to the commercial forces of a new era where recordings started a new mass market dictated by public taste.  What we think we know is shaped by market forces.  Harnoncourt's response was to go back to the roots (read more here). Masur and the East German tradition were "at" the roots.. Masur conducted the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra from 1955 to 1972, with breaks between, and conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1970 to 1996.  These two great pillars of the German tradition remained pure and largely intact. So Masur's repertoire was standard Austro-German, like Thielemann's after him? Better that conductors should do what they love best.

The city of Leipzig has been a centre of German culture and idealism for centuries.  Consider its "favourite sons" among them Bach, Schumann and Mendelssohn. It also has liberal tendencies. When the Nazxis tried to rip out Mendelssohn's statue outside the Gewandhaus, the Mayor stood up to them. So when protests for freedom began in early 1989, Leipzig was at the heart of things.  Masur attended meetings at the Nikolaikirche, and stood with the thousands  who marched through the streets. Just as Furtwängler made a statement conducting Beethoven to make Goebbels squirm, Masur played Beethoven as a symbol of liberty and freedom.   In 1956 and again in 1968, the Soviets silenced protest by sending in tanks.  The Nikolaikirche movement's emphasis on non-violence grew from very realistic awareness of danger.  Just as Sibelius brought the world behind Finland against Russia,  Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra used their prestige to galvanize support invoking moral authority.

A few weeks after the "revolution" of October 9th, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra went on tour. At the time, we worried that they wouldn't be allowed out in case they defected.  When they walked onto the platform at the Sheldonian in Oxford, the audience began to cheer as a gesture of appreciation. The orchestra seemed visibly moved. Masur let them take in the solemnity of the moment for as long as possible, before launching into an impassioned evening of Beethoven.

Barely two years later, Masur left the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra for New York.  In London, we got to know him well, when he was Chief of the LPO during the first decade of the millennium, while simultaneously heading the Orchestra Nationale de France and guesting elsewhere. So much for the nonsense idea that conductors should only manage one orchestra at a time.  A friend  said Masur was "too foursquare", but another said that it was his DDR heritage, which puts other tastes into perspective. ie not Bernstein or Karajan.  Masur went on to many things after Leipzig, but Leipzig will always be central to his legacy.  It is sad that it has taken Masur's death to alert the world that he had a huge career long before he went to the west. 

Here is a a link to the best and most comprehensive obituary. Extremely well written, by someone who knewe the subject well. Once newspapers used to employ serious professionals to do these things, and update them when the subject died. In this case, the un named writer seems to have stopped about 10 years ago because the info on London and Paris is sketchy and seems to have been filled in by someone else, as some other parts like the first paragraphs.  But it gives an excellent and personal insight,

Below a clip of Masur conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at the Nikolaikirche.(not 1989)

Nelson Mandela

For Nelson Mandela, who showed love conquers where hate corrodes.

Aung San Suu Kyi :The Lady and the Peacock

How did a North Oxford housewife, cycling in a longyi to Park Town, win a Nobel Prize and this week be feted by Hillary Clinton?  Do good this Xmas season and read the new book Aung San Suu Kyi : The Lady and the Peacock ( 2011 398pp).

Peter Popham has interviewed Aung San Suu Ki, been to Burma, and has met many people who knew her when she was young. The nbookim includes first-person accounts not available before,  and a good description of events after Suu Kyi returned to Burma. The stand-off at Danubyu in 1989 is vividly described, Suu Kyi was on a progress through rural Burma and forbidden to enter a town under martial law. So she calmly walked down the middle of the road. The military drew their guns but didn't shoot.  That tells us a lot about Suu Kyi but also about Burma. In many countries she'd have been disappeared, not held in long-term detention.


Suu Kuyi's father was Aung San, the father of Burmese Independence, who was assassinated with his cabinet in 1947. Because he was such a figurehead, Suu Kyi had moral force, even after the military downplayed the personality cult.  But Suu Kyi's achievements are her own, and those of the National League for Democracy, and the thousands of unknown, ordinary Burmese who stood up to the regime. Many died, or still languish in prison. It's still not certain what might happen if Suu Kyi wins the next election. The regime nullified the 1990 election win, and used the ludicrous troll trespass incident of 2009 to extend the term of her house arrest.  And government is different to dissent. So no complacency. You need to read this book for background.

Suu Kyi was typical of the educated, idealistic Asian and African elite who studied abroad  and went on to challenge traditional parameters. Think Sun Yat Sen, the Nehrus, even Barack Obama's father. Suu Kyi was international, living from the age of 15 for long periods in India, England, Japan, Bhutan and in New York during the Warhol years. Many of her friends, even her brother, did well at university and had glittering careers but Suu Kyi found her niche only in her 40's.  Yet the fact that she spent her youth raising a family makes her dedication even more admirable. Mandela and Solzhenitsyn didn't sacrifice in the same way. One of the principles of non-violence is that even the humblest individual can change things.

This book is best where the author has access to good sources, like Bertil Lintner's  account of the 1988 revolt and the diary Ma Thanegi kept for Michael Aris. Eventually perhaps, there'll be a more analytical study with more detail on underlying issues. The Burmese regime became "The Albania of South East Asia" for reasons that need to be understood.  Suu Kyi's maternal uncle was a leader of the Burmese Communist Party.  Similarly, more assessment of relations with Thailand and Japan, the only rwo nations in Asia that escaped colonialism.  Suu Kyi's mother's dismay at her marriage reflects fears of cultural dilution in a post-colonial situation. Indeed, the whole idea of colonialism needs to be confronted.  It's by no means an issue of the past. It lives on unconsciously in any west-centric account of non-western subjects.  The many different varieties of Buddhism, for example, don't need unification any more than the many forms of Judeo-Christian belief.

This is primarliy a book by a journalist, well written in an accessible, direct way. That's important because this book needs to reach general readers everywhere. Later, a more scholarly analysis will be possible, but not yet as the drama still unfolds. Yet Suu Kyi's story resonates with most of us. Inspirational reading for Xmas! Gift this book and make a difference yourself in a small way.  Buy it direct from the Burma Campaign UK so profits go towards the cause.  As Lord David Steel says it's "a reminder that we, in the comfortable outside, must not let her down.”

Lots more on Aung San Suu Kyi, Asia and non-violence on this site. Please explore. 

First and greatest Traviata of all - 蘇小小

Another heroic consumptive courtesan? Su Xiao Xiao (So Siu Siu, 蘇小小) was a real person though relatively little is known about her since she died aged only 19 around 501 AD.  But she inspired some of the greatest poets and artists in China, and helped shape fundamental Chinese values. She's a cultural icon, even after 1500 years. Yet she was born in poverty and sold to a brothel as a child.

Su lived on the banks of West Lake, near Hangzhou, an area celebrated for its beauty. Su became famous as a poet and musician: much more valuable than sex. Her legend, however, revolves on her moral integrity. After enjoying this week's La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, (read more here), I decided to watch the 1962 film 蘇小小 which ar the time was one of the most extravagant Cantonese movies made. Part of it was filmed on location on West Lake, showing  its temples, bridges and pavilions and Su's grave, a highly symbolic monument which was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards thought she was bad because she represented Chinese tradition. In fact, her values would easily have fitted socialist ideals. 

Su overcame her circumstances by merit, not wealth or connections. The film develops her poem in which two people encounter each other under trees by Xilin bridge. One is in a carriage, the other on a horse. Xiao Xiao (actress 白茵, Pak Yan, not the same as Pak Yin!) is on her way to the temple in her carriage and she meets Yuen Yu (周驄 Chow Hung) who is on a mission for his father, The Prime Minister. They fall in love and marry. Yuen's kept his identity secret becauase he knows Xiao Xiao doesn't trust wealth and power. But when he tells her who he really is, she says "I love you for you, not your Dad". Eventually the Prime Minister arrives and drags the son away fromk the unsuitable match. When the son is married off to a General's daughter, he tries to escape but falls to his death. Xiao Xiao doesn't know but pines for him.

The wicked local governor wants to sleep with Xiao Xiao but she stands up to him. If she writes a good poem, he has to leave her alone. It's so good that he's stunned into submission for a while. Morality and art as weapons.

Xiao Xiao also meets a scholar called Pao Yen (wonderful performance by Cheung Wood-yau 張活游)who's a master at singing and playing the  guzheng (table lute). More importantly, he's upright and opposes tyranny and poverty. "Why don't you become an official so you can do something about it", asks Xiao Xiao, ever down to earth. He's too poor to travel to the imperial examinations which qualify men for officaldom, so she gives him the money. No strings attached. Later Xiao Xiao is forced to sing for the wicked governor to raise money to bail out a young prostitute who's in love with a nice young man. By now, she's dying of what seems to be TB, so her song is so sad, the governor can't rape her.

The scholar passes his exams and gets a good job at court. So he returns to thank Ziao Xiao, but confirms that her lover is dead. It's too much and she collapses. Her last wish is that Pao Yuen plays the guzheng once more and sings of the West Lake and Zilin Bridge.

Shaw Brothers Studios used to make historical extravaganzas like this, but 蘇小小 was made by a tiny Cantonese independent called Peacock Productions which soon folded. Yet it's ambitious, shot in colour and has Chinese and English subtitles. If you want to watch it, email me for a link.

You might also like reading about another heroic Chinese Traviata, Lin Dai, in Love Without End.
Tomorrow I will review The Lady and the Peacock : the Life of Aung San Suu Kyi (2011) Please come back.  You can see why anyone well versed in Chinese/Buddhist values can relate to Aung San Suu Kyi and the ideas she holds. It's part of a culture that goes back moe than a thousand years. 

Making a difference - Aids and other causes

I can remember AIDS even before it had a name. At first it was just rumours and then everyone started to die, even "respectable" homophobes. My Dad had an illness that looked like Karposi's syndrome (it wasn't) and people would run away in the library and in the supermarket. The hysteria! I'd forgotten it was World's Aids Day but never forgotten the people who suffered, those who cared for them and those they left behind. Perhaps Aids is contained in the west because it's high profile and Big Pharma saw money in it. But at least the world was galvanized into taking action, and it's made a difference. One thing Thatcher's government did right was the NHS Aids awareness campaign, so brutal that many objected. Part of the hate directed at Princess Diana was because she had compassion and cared about people whatever their status. But it worked. Sometimes it feels like activism gets  nowhere but Aids campaigns show that people can make a change. So many causes still to struggle for, poverty, war, social injustice as well as disease.

I've started to read Peter Popham's Aung San Suu Kyi : The Lady and the Peacock (2011). Very well written and focused.  At Christmas, people splash money around. Give this book instead and make a difference. Buy it direct from the Burma Campaign UK so profits get ploughed back to a good cause. (multiple copies to multiple friends, less hassle)

People have asked me what the photo on my logo is. It's a statue that used to stand in Haw Par Yuen, (Tiger Balm Gardens) the home of Au Boon Haw (胡文虎) whose father founded Tiger Balm, still one of the best panaceas for muscle aches, headaches etc  The photo above is one of their cars, preserved in Singapore. (photo : Dionisius Purba) The family were Hakka from Fujian, but settled in Burma in the 1860's. Au Boon Haw and his brother were devout Buddhists who used their wealth for philanthropy, in China, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma. But because they refused to support the British during the Second World War they were maligned. But why should they have supported a foreign colonial power? Their primary loyalty was to China. The British were mainly interested in white British POWs not the millions of displaced, destitute locals

Aw Boon Haw supported numerous different charities and funded schools, hospitals and orphanages. During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, Aw used his clout with the Burmese Chinese rice monopoly to make sure supplies were not completely cut off.  He also founded a newspaper empire, aimed at South East Asian Chinese. His flagship title was the Sing Tao Yat Po. After 1945, Aw founded "The Standard" an English language newspaper that wasn't a mouthpiece of the establishment. Someone should use the archives of Chinese charities and study the Aw brothers as Chinese patriots. Indeed, the history of the period would be rewritten if Chinese sources were used.

Radical déjeuner

Dissident Ai wei wei poses naked with women? Far more radical was this event in the late 1920's in Shanghai where a group of artists posed for (I think) a formal graduation photo and included their life class model. It's a reference to Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe but in China, unlike the west, there's no tradition of classical nudity. These artists were changing values within the society they lived in.

This week, Aung San Suu Kyi  announced that she would run for parliament in Burma.  This is courageous  because she's reaffirming the idea of democracy as "the will of the people". Although the generals mistreated her and other Burmese, she doesn't choose violent overthrow but works to heal from within. How can bad systems really change? Again and again, violence perpetuates regression. Cheer the fall of Gaddafi,  but remember what happened after the fall of the Shah. On the other hand, the non-violent collapse of Communism in Europe which really seems to have brought a new, if less secure, era. What brings about fundamental, positive change? I'm wary of rent-a-mob protesters who think protest is cute stunts and don't analyse issue by issue. That's no different from following party lines or demagogue politics. No one country can solve this Economic Collapse, certainly no one person. Real change, I think, will only come through a mature rethink of the fundamentals of the system, not stunts, not violence.  

Dichterliebe - Aung San Suu Kyi

In March, 1999, Michael Aris passed away. He was the husband of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese dissident, who is still under arrest in Myanmar on trumped-up charges.  Here they are in happier times, in Burma, in 1973.

Aris was an authority on Himalayan Buddhism at Oxford, so a memorial was held for him in the theatre at Wolfson College. His identical twin Anthony is also a Buddhist scholar, so it was uncanny to see him at the memorial, But in many ways, that's karma.

Karma too, in the form of the memorial, a performance of Dichterliebe, for it was Michael and Suu Kyi's favourite song cycle, and meant a great deal to them.  Schumann won Clara only after years of separation and struggle. Although Dichterliebe was written to celebrate their wedding, the cycle is infused with a sense of uncertainty, as if happiness might not last. Only a few years into their marriage, Schumann became ill and died. Michael and Suu Kyi at least enjoyed some years of happiness before destiny called..

So this Dichterliebe was very  special indeed, emotionally very powerful. Let no one say that extra-musical impressions don't count. They do. We would not be human if we responded to music without emotion. Even the most abstract sounds are processed by who we are. Not all emotion needs to be effusive, heart-on-sleeve, but it's there, because people are not machines.  Sometimes simplicity is all the more sincere.

Mark Padmore sang this Dichterliebe with Julius Drake at the piano. It was a wonderful performance. Previously I'd only heard him sing baroque, lute songs and  Henze's Six Songs From the Arabian (sorry, but it wasn't good) but this Dichterliebe had me almost in tears. It was an experience I'll never forget.

Oddly enough what sticks in my memory too is the strawberries we were served at the end of the meal. Incredibly ripe and fresh.  We ate that crop, but offshoots of the plants have been growing again, year after year. Suu Kyi won't taste strawberries again, in prison, far away in tropical Burma, and Michael is dead. But they must have enjoyed the first strawberries of summer in the past, just as they once enjoyed Dichterliebe. She has grown old, suffering for her people and her ideals. I don't know if she'll be vindicated in her lifetime, but her courage is a symbol, for Burma, and for people everywhere who stand up for what is good, against all odds. Please seemy other posts on Aung San Suu Kyi by following the labels below and support the Burma Campaign and spreade the word by giving the new boiography to your friends.    The book is REVIEWED HERE.

Satyagraha ENO Glass 2010 London - review

Please note a proper formal review will shortly appear in Opera Today which will be different to these - pithier ! It's a good site, please visit as it's crammed with repertoire commentary and downloads.

Philip Glass's Satyagraha at the English National Opera, at the Coliseum, London, proves that modern minimalism can be extraordinarily moving. The secret is to open your soul, as Gandhi did, when he searched the Baghavad-Gita for inspiration.

Glass's repetitive cadences vary little, so you worry that the musicians will get RSI. Yet listen carefully, and the repeats vary in microtones, gradually shifting gears into different cadences. This unrushed monotony is as natural as breathing. Hindus chant the word "Om" endlessly, until the vibration enters their bodies, allowing their minds to float, beyond consciousness. So it is with Glass's music, informed by other and older traditions than western music.

Once you break free of any dependence on conventional musical form, Glass's strange, hypnotic cadences start operating on you with you hardly being aware. Your focus shifts inwards, beyond outward form. There was exceptionally idiomatic playing from the ENO orchestra, conducted by Stuart Stratford. When the orchestra took their bows, parts of the audience went wild with enthusiasm. Clearly an audience that knows new music, or accepts it on its own terms. Satyagraha is the biggest selling contemporary opera the ENO has produced, and possibly the best.

The text is in Sanskrit, which most people, including Indians, don't understand. This is deliberate because what Gandhi discovered was that words and meaning aren't the same thing. Hence the scene from the epic myth of Arjuna. The hero's enemies are puppets, men with sticks who crumble when moved. Scene titles appear, like chapter headings in books, but what unfolds on stage isn't narrative. Tolstoy and Tagore appear in panels above the stage. You don't really need to know who they are: the idea is that you'll want to find out more, later, when you're "outside the box" of the performance.

There are so many amazing images in this production that it's hard to take them all in at once. Some are striking, like the giant puppets that descend menacingly on Gandhi, corralled by bigots singing hahahaha. Others are elusive, like the fish which materializes in the second act. It doesn't matter if we don't get them all. Like words, images are hints of meaning, not meaning in themselves. Rarely have I ever seen a staging that expresses the spirit of an opera so well. Because Glass's music is so unusual, and his text obscure, staging in this opera is even more important than usual. Phelim McDermott, Julian Crouch and Improbable and their team have created a theatrical masterpiece which is sensitive and well-informed.

The staging is so atmospheric that the simple clean lines of the Third Act come as quite a shock. Gandhi sits front stage while a man ascends a ladder. The reference is Martin Luther King. who adapted the principles of Satyagraha to the Civil Rights Movement. At the premiere in 2007, I thought this act was too abrupt a change from the sepia-tinted mystery that had gone before, and that the image of King waving to the clouds was contrived, as if designed for American audiences who might not care who Gandhi was. Since then, Barack Obama has become President, espousing similar non-violent methods. No government in the world has coped with the global meltdown or the war in the Middle East. Yet somehow people expect Obama to have solved all that and more in barely a year. Reading some of the hate directed at him makes you remember that we haven't really "reached the mountain top".

On the other hand, the spareness of this Act hones in on Alan Oke as Gandhi. Perhaps it's significant that until this stage in the opera, Oke sings with an ensemble or remains relatively quiet. Now he's centre focus. He sings two extended "arias", the first with its references to "athletes of the spirit" who hold steadfast unto death. The second is more lyrical for he's expressing transcendence. Oke has matured into the part, and is singing with greater depth and dignity than three years ago. He's in his element now. You don't need to know the exact words he's singing, because he conveys their sense with such conviction. Also more comfortable, in the role of Miss Schlesen, is Elena Xanthoudakis: some lovely flights of lyrical beauty. This production is musically even better than before, superb performances all round. Photo credits : Alastair Muir/ENO Please note, these photos are COPYRIGHT and used with permission

Glass Satyagraha ENO preview

See REVIEW above !
After experiencing Koyaanisqatsi twice, I thought I was inoculated against Philip Glass. However, a friend, who knows the opera insisted that Satyagraha was different, and good. Since my friend's tastes are more conservative than mine, it was a recommendation to act on. We went to the 2007 premiere at the Coliseum. He was absolutely right: Satyagraha is amazing! The ENO production, directed by Phelim McDermott, was streets ahead of the Stuttgart production my friend had enjoyed before.

Satyagraha doesn't sound promising in theory, because it's sung in Sanskrit and Glass's repetitive monotones drone on shapelessly. But for once, that's the whole point, that words alone are meaningless. Real change is brought about when people think and act. The story is set in Mahatma Gandhi's youth, when he still believed that conventional, middle class ideas could change things. While he lived in South Africa, he was a facsimile of the British middle class intellectual, agitating through the press, hoping thus to change the entrenched colonial system.

His big breakthrough came when he switched to direct action. By swapping his tweed three-piece suit for a simple cotton loincloth, he was making a truly radical statement: you don't change the power structure by playing its own games. So no more pamphlets and newspapers, no more polite posturing. The Empire wasn't going to budge an inch. "Satyagraha" means firm conviction in one's beliefs, not pitting violence against violence, but changing the way people think on a much deeper level. It's still a radical approach, and applies today and to many aspects of life.

That's why in the ENO production shreds of newsprint fall from the skies, tying the stage up in knots. Indian peasants couldn't read, but they knew what their livelihood came from. Textile mills in Northern England prospered, marginalizing traditional Indian commerce. Gandhi's battleground was boycotting Manchester and supporting cottage industry in Indian villages. In iteself, that's no big deal, but it symbolizes a truly radical shift in the power structure. So that's why Philip Glass's libretto's in Sanskrit. You have to let go of "words" in order to reach deeper, intuitive understanding. But as the saying goes, "it's easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter Heaven" - ie you've got to ditch the material to reach the spiritual. So Gandhi with no possessions other than his begging bowl brought down the might of the British Empire.

Gandhi's inspiration came from Ancient Sanskrit texts. Appropriately in this production, a primeval battle scene is enacted by gigantic puppets, evoking the juggernauts of Indian tradition. They tower over the stage, and are extremely elaborate and detailed. They are meant to “shock and awe” . But puppets they are, however formidable. As the puppeteers step down from their stilts, the giants disintegrate, and we see that they are hollow constructs made by ordinary men.The image is extremely powerful, and important, because it captures the soul of Gandhi’s struggle.

Moreover, the puppets are made of newsprint. The printed word was important, and Gandhi’s journal Indian Opinion was widely read. Throughout this production, images of newsprint appear – banners of paper, as if fresh off a printing press, papier maché creations, images of newspaper headlines superimposed on the backdrop. The images appear relentlessly but ultimately, words alone are meaningless. “Action”, says Gandhi, is a form of “spiritual exercise”. The Satyagraha movement revolved around simple living, focused on idealistic communes where humble tasks were shared by all, regardless of race or status. Later in the opera, as the movement gains momentum through strikes and civil action, festoons of newsprint are torn to shreds, the debris swept away by bands of actors with small brooms – just like peasants in India. Even more striking is the scene where the stage is criss-crossed with what seem to be shining ribbons of light, carefully woven into a maze-like pattern. It’s visually stunning, but the lines are then revealed as sticky tape, transparent but impossible to unravel.

Even Glass’s minimalist technique seems to work in this particular context. The very repetitiveness of it means that a listener doesn’t need to focus on every note. Instead, the imagination can float “over” the notes, so to speak, the better to concentrate on meaning. It’s very similar to Buddhist chanting where single sounds are repeated over and over until they blend into the subconscious, freeing the mind from temporal concerns. It’s not a technique unique to Buddhism, of course, but it works. On closer examination, though, Glass’s music is surprisingly natural, rather like the normal rhythm of breathing. Accordingly, the vocal parts, while demanding, are not forced. Indeed, some sections are quite beautifully lyrical, such as the long aria (if you can call it that) for Gandhi in the Final Act.

In the final act, cadences rise ever higher, “climbing a ladder” aspirationally, just as the Martin Luther King character does on stage. It’s also tricky music to perform, as missing a bar, or fluffing a note would disrupt the organic flow.

Once word gets round that Glass is not to be feared, this production will be appreciated for what it is. I sincerely hope so, because its complicated philosophic content may well be more difficult for audiences to cope with than Glass’s music per se. But it’s an excellent production and deserves to be a hit. Photo credits : Alastair Muir/ENO Please note these photos are copyright and used with permission