[Assam] 'Satyagraha' the Opera from the NYT

[Ram Sarangapani]

For those interested, this might be something you would like.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/arts/music/14saty.html?pagewanted=print

 April 14, 2008
Music Review | 'Satyagraha'
Fanciful Visions on the Mahatma's Road to Truth and Simplicity By ANTHONY
TOMMASINI<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/anthony_tommasini/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

This is a fitting time to revisit Philip
Glass<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/philip_glass/index.html?inline=nyt-per>'s
opera "Satyagraha," a landmark work of Minimalism. I take Mr. Glass at his
word that when "Satyagraha" was introduced, in Rotterdam in 1980, he was
following his own voice and vision, not firing a broadside against the
complex, cerebral modernist composers who claimed the intellectual high
ground while alienating mainstream classical music audiences. Happily, that
divisive period is finally past.

Metropolitan Opera<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/m/metropolitan_opera/index.html?inline=nyt-org>patrons,
mostly bound by tradition, might not seem a likely source of Glass
fans. But when Mr. Glass appeared onstage after the Met's first performance
of "Satyagraha," on Friday night, the audience erupted in a deafening
ovation.

"Satyagraha" (a Sanskrit term that means truth force) is more a musical
ritual than a traditional opera. Impressionistic and out of sequence, it
relates the story of Mohandas K.
Gandhi<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/mohandas_k_gandhi/index.html?inline=nyt-per>'s
fight for the civil rights of the Indian minority in South Africa from 1893
to 1914. The staging — created by Phelim McDermott, director, and Julian
Crouch, associate director and set designer, for the Met and the English
National Opera, where it was seen last year — makes inventive use of
fanciful imagery, aerialists, gargantuan puppets and theatrical spectacle to
convey the essence of a self-consciously spiritual work.

Without knowing the events of Gandhi's struggles in South Africa you would
have little idea what is going on, starting from the opening scene. Gandhi,
portrayed by the sweet-voiced tenor Richard Croft in a heroic performance,
lies on the ground in a rumpled suit, his suitcase nearby. The moment
depicts an incident when Gandhi, as a young lawyer en route to Pretoria and
holding a proper first-class ticket, was ordered to take his place with the
Indians on board and, when he resisted, was pushed from the train onto the
platform.

But this abstract production takes its cues from Mr. Glass, who was not
interested in fashioning a cogent narrative. What continues to make the
opera seem radical comes less from the music, with its lulling repetitions
of defiantly simple riffs, motifs and scale patterns, than from the complete
separation of sung text from dramatic action, such as it is.

The libretto, assembled by the novelist Constance DeJong, consists of
philosophical sayings from the Bhagavad-Gita, the sacred Hindu epic poem.
Mr. Glass honors the text by keeping it in the original Sanskrit and setting
every syllable clearly. This production dispenses with Met Titles on the
theory that the audience would actually be distracted by paying attention to
the words, which at best serve as commentary. Instead key phrases in English
are projected on a semicircular corrugated wall that forms the backdrop of
the production's gritty and elemental set.

"Satyagraha" invites you to turn off the part of your brain that looks for
linear narrative and literal meaning in a musical drama and enter a
contemplative state — not hard to do during the most mesmerizing parts of
the opera, especially in this sensitive performance. For example, in the
hauntingly mystical opening scene when Gandhi reflects on a battle between
two royal families depicted in the Bhagavad-Gita, Mr. Croft, in his
plaintive voice, sang the closest the score comes to a wistful folk song
while undulant riffs wound through the lower strings.

That the impressive young conductor Dante Anzolini, in his Met debut, kept
the tempos on the slow side lent weight and power to the repetitive
patterns. At times, though, during stretches in the opera when Mr. Glass
pushes the repetitions to extremes, as in the wild conclusion to the final
choral scene in Act I, the music became a gloriously frenzied din of
spiraling woodwind and organ riffs.

Even in this breakthrough work Mr. Glass does not come across as a composer
who sweats over details. He tends to rely on default repetitions of
formulaic patterns, the only question being how often to repeat a phrase.
Sometimes the daring simplicity just sounds simplistic. When he does work
harder, fracturing the rhythmic flow or injecting some pungent dissonance
into his harmonies, I am more drawn in.

In this regard Mr. Glass is different from another founding father of
Minimalism, Steve
Reich<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/steve_reich/index.html?inline=nyt-per>,
whose music is just as repetitious as Mr. Glass's. But Mr. Reich has always
had an ear for ingenious, striking and intricate detail.

Sometimes, with its aerial feats and puppetry, the Met production relies too
much on stage activity. Still, it's quite a show. Mr. McDermott and Mr.
Crouch have assembled a group of acrobats and aerialists called the Skills
Ensemble, who produce magical effects. In once scene they form a huge puppet
queen clothed in newspaper who goes to battle against a hulking puppet
warrior assembled from wicker baskets. The use of simple materials is meant
as homage to the poor, oppressed minorities for whom Gandhi gave his life.

Because Gandhi relied on the news media of his day to support his agitation
for human rights and published his own journal, Indian Opinion, newspapers
are a running image in the production. Actors fashion pages into symbolic
barriers for protests. At one point, in despair, Gandhi disappears into a
slithering mass of people and paper.

The cast entered into the ritualistic wonder of the work and the production
despite solo and choral parts that are often formidably hard. It's almost
cruel to ask male choristers to sing foursquare, monotone repetitions of
"ha, ha, ha, ha" for nearly 10 minutes, as Mr. Glass does. Yet the chorus
sang with stamina and conviction.

Besides Mr. Croft, other standouts in the excellent cast included the
soprano Rachelle Durkin as Gandhi's secretary, Miss Schlesen; the
mezzo-soprano Maria Zifchak as his wife; the bass-baritone Alfred Walker as
Parsi Rustomji, a co-worker; and the baritone Earle Patriarco as Mr.
Kallenbach, a European co-worker and ally. You are not likely to hear the
long, ethereal sextet in the last act sung with more calm intensity and
vocal grace than it was here.

Ultimately, despite its formulaic elements, "Satyagraha" emerges here as a
work of nobility, seriousness, even purity. In the final soliloquy, timeless
and blithely simple, Gandhi hauntingly sings an ascending scale pattern in
the Phrygian mode 30 times. To some degree the ovation at the end, after a
3-hour-45-minute evening, was necessary. The audience had to let loose after
all that contemplation.

"Satyagraha" continues through May 1 at the Metropolitan Opera; (212)
362-6000, metopera.org.