full album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at9Z2...
Satyagraha was commissioned by the City of Rotterdam, The Netherlands. World Premiere: September 5,1980, Stadsschouwburg Theater, Rotterdam. Original production: The Netherlands Opera Company. Director: David Poutney. Set & Costume Design: Robert Israel. Lighting: Richard Riddell.
The Sense of Peace
By any measure, the critical and popular acclaim awarded the composer Philip Glass, in both his native America and throughout much of Europe, is extraordinary. His three operas — Einstein on the Beach (1975), Satyagraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1983) — have been produced by several leading opera houses while the composer and his ensemble are capable of selling out Carnegie Hall one night and a mid-western rock club the next. Glass's audience seems to defy normal categories: Conservatory students diligently analyze the composer's unusual orchestration, while their more hedonistic contemporaries blare Glass albums from dormitory stereo systems.
Although he loathes the term, Glass is often classified as a "minimalist" composer, alonSatyagraha is about the period that Gandhi spent in South Africa (1893-1914). In fighting to repeal the so-called "Black Act" — a law that restricted the movement of non-Eurupeans from place to place and that virtually enslaved South Africa's substantial Indian community — Gandhi developed the concept of "Satyagraha," or truth-force. Gandhi fought the South African authorities on the issue of the Black Act, and eventually won non-violently — by organizing hunger strikes and peaceful demonstrations. The American novelist Constance DeJong adapted the story of Gandhi's struggle and prepared a libretto from the Bhagavad-Gita. Glass kept the opera's text in the original Sanskrit, in an attempt to avoid upsetting the rhythm of what is, of course, a sacred text. In another bow to authenticity, Glass used only what he called "international" instruments — instruments that could be found in both America and India, in one form or another. Satyagraha was completed in early 1980 and received its first performance in Rotterdam that September.
Each act of Satyagraha takes a historical figure as a sort of spiritual guardian, watching the earthly action from above. In the First Act, the symbol is Count Leo Tolstoy. He was one of Gandhi's inspirations thorughout his life, and the two men carried on a correspondence that lasted until the Russian's death in 1910. Glass believes that the "same combination of the political and the spiritual is found in both Gandhi's and Tolstoy's writings."
In Act Two, Rabindranath Tagore, the renowned poet and scholar who was the only living moral authority acknowledged by Gandhi, serves as the guardian. "The symbol in the Third Act is Martin Luther King, Jr.," Glass says, "who always impressed me as a sort of American Gandhi, accomplishing many of the same things here, and in the same manner, that Gandhi did in India. Tolstoy, Tagore, and King represent the past, present and future of Satyagraha."
Satyagraha is vastly different from the usual operatic spectacle. It is a work written entirely on a moral, even religious, plane — more ritual than entertainment, more mystery than opera. While Einstein challenged all our ideas about what an opera — even an avant-garde opera — should be, Satyagraha neatly fits Glass into the mainstream. Einstein broke the rules with Modernist zeal: Satyagraha touches all the bases, adapting the rules to the composer's own aesthetic. The opening scene is an aria that becomes a duet, then a trio, all set down in a rich, declamatory, near-Verdian manner. Other scenes may remind the listener of Wagner, or Delius, or of the Balinese gamelan, while the finale to Act II has the same combination of deeply classical romanticism to be found in Berlioz's Les Troyens — hyperactive woodwind triplets and all.
Still, while Glass seems to be consciously coming to terms with his forerunners, there is never a descent to parody, nor a hint of borrowing. One never doubts who the composer is. The closing measures are masterful — has the unadorned Phrygian mode ever seemed such an eloquent melody in itself, repeated as it is, some thirty times over shifting musical sands? The nuclear anxiety of Einstein seems far away, replaced by a serene power — call it truth-force, or, better still, Satyagraha — and an all-encompassing sense of peace.
