Philip Glass has attained popular acclaim for scoring many successful films, including The Hours, The Truman Show and Notes From A Scandal. More recently, his music was used to striking effect within 2009′s film of Watchmen. Yet he has been a true Renaissance man throughout his career, writing symphonies (including two adapted from the ‘Berlin’ albums of David Bowie and Brian Eno), concertos and operas. Satyagraha was first performed in 1980, but was staged for the first time by the ENO in 2007, to enormous acclaim. With this, its first revival, it isn’t at all hard to see why it is regarded as one of the greatest modern operas.
Over the course of three acts, Glass explores the early life of Gandhi (powerfully sung by Alan Oke) in South Africa where he formed ‘satyagraha’, which literally means the use of resistance by non-violent means. This would of course become crucial to his later philosophy, but is here presented as the powerful awakening of a spiritual conscience, something that Glass and his co-librettist Constance de Jong present via an adaptation of the Bhagavad-Gita.
If it sounds somewhat obscure, this ignores the two key strengths of this production. The first is the spectacular staging by director Phelim McDermott and the Improbable group. The vastness of the Colisseum stage is complemented by audacious effects such as gigantic puppets with misshapen heads towering over city skyscrapes and Gandhi, or apparently endless newspapers appearing across the stage to suggest international opinion of Gandhi’s actions. And the second, unsurprisingly, is Glass’ music. With steady, constant rhythms of string arpeggios punctuated by blasts of woodwind, organ and full choral explosions, it clearly foreshadows his famous work over the next three decades. For anyone seriously interested in modern classical or opera music, or for admirers of Glass, this is an unmissable experience.
Until 26 March. www.eno.org
Image by Alistair Muir/ENO.
