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motodraconis) wrote2013-11-21 08:41 pm
motodraconis) wrote2013-11-21 08:41 pm
Satyagraha - Glass
I know a lot of people who love Phillip Glass operas. Two of my co-workers adore his work, telling me it is quite "unmissable." This is my second Phillip Glass, and I confess I was not hugely impressed by the first one I saw. However, based on my previous experience, I made sure to bring some strong coffee.
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crazycrone refers to Glass' work as "trancelike" and in this she is not wrong, though equally, you might refer to it (as I do) as soporific. However, I was looking forward to the promise of funky puppets, and in this I was not disappointed.
The opera began well, with a hot looking chap wearing a sexy fitted blue suit in the role of Krishna. The repeated refrain in the music was not unpleasant, and while the singing was unintelligible gibberish with no subtitles (apparently the entire opera is sung in Sanskrit) it was not disagreeable. I managed to zone out a little. It occurred to me at this point, that if you suffer from insomnia, particularly getting off to sleep in the evening, then downloading Phillip Glass and putting it on a timer till you nod off would not be a bad idea. Certainly it would never climax in any way as to jerk you awake. Music to fall asleep to.
At the first interval, I dived for a spare seat on the front row of the balcony, and I was treated to some youngsters burbling about the opera so far. The girls seemed to like it, but the boy was rather unimpressed, complaining of the lack of narrative or variety of music. I confess, I erred on the side of the boy's opinion, but the second act wasn't too bad. The creepy hahaha men were distinctly disturbing, and by contrast, rendering the gallant brolly woman scene rather moving. Lots of crazy puppets too, you can't fault ENO for an excellent production and great singing.
Most operas come with a synopsis, this one comes with an instruction manual, it is quite impenetrable.
Periodically, explanatory sentences were projected onto the back of the stage, though annoyingly, the top of these got cropped off if you were on the balcony.
It's a wall of sound, on one level, agreeable, but there are never any decent solos to get your teeth into. A well-woven, but endless chorus.
The trance-like quality is all very well, but I found my mind drifting and getting hooked up obsessively on weird details... the glowing ears of one jug-eared chorus member who's protruding lugs caught the back light in a most unfortunate manner... or the disconcerting lighting effects that made Ghandi look like he was sporting a handsome pair of fullsome ladies breasts.
Aaaaand we were into the third act. This was the point where I lost it. What had once been a charming repetitive refrain for the first act now became a monotonous dirge beat that ground on my nerves. Endless wibbly-wobbly scales going up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down and...well you get the point. It was a toss up between giving up entirely and letting my head slump down on the balcony as the boy on my right was doing, slumping in on myself in full slumber as the old gent on my left... or... or... desperately struggling to resist the urge to begin screaming out... MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP! Ok, forget what I said about listening to this music to help you sleep at night, DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS AT NIGHT or the interminable monotony of the music set on endless loop will drive you insane. Frankly I have never experienced any music so utterly, diabolically and relentlessly annoying. I actually found myself missing the discordant niggly music of Berg's Wozzack. I've heard that the US army like to play rock music to enemy forces to break their spirit. They should play the last act of this blasted opera - it's enough to break anyone's very soul.
Matching visually the musical torment, ENO dropped a vast vat of jelly onto the entire cast, forcing them to perform the last act incredibly sloooooowly. I felt as if I'd dropped into a wormhole of Hell, doomed to be imprisoned in this auditory and visual space where time squeezed out interminably. Ok, I lied about the vat of jelly, but not the sluggish agony. A little editing please! I'm not asking for much, just lop off an hour or two!
Of course, this is just my opinion, some people love Glass, and I'm beginning to spot a pattern in that if I utterly, utterly loathe an opera, chances are,
crazycrone, giggly_teapot and ninshubur will love it, however, if you do not fall into this inverse relationship to my musical tastes (or lack of) my advice is to see this but leave after the second interval, save your sanity, save yourself!Satyagraha at the ENO. All pictures taken from the ENO Facebook.
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