Satyagraha, UMA ÓPERA POR Philip Glass

SatyagrahaBy Hilary Finch, April 7, 2007 4/5 stars

A mere 27 years after its world premiere in Rotterdam, Philip Glass'sGandhi opera Satyagraha has finally been staged in London. It hastaken the sixtieth anniversary of Indian independence, a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and substantialsupport from Sky Arts (which dedicates an evening to Glass nextSaturday) to bring it about. On the first night, standing ovationsgreeted the 70-year-old composer as he took his bow.English National Opera was responsible for the staging of Glass'sAkhnaten in 1985, and The Making of the Representative for Planet 8in 1989. Satyagraha has been long awaited, for it is vintage Glass.The focus on Gandhi's South African years (1893-1914) and his workfor satya graha, or "firmness in championing the truth" throughnonviolence, is central to Glass's own thinking. And, at this phasein his career, his music was in its glorious prime: those repetitivepatternings shifting and shining with ingenious rhythmic and melodicideas, interlocking, overlapping, yet ever calm.The greatness of Satyagraha (and this ENO performance, conducted byJohannes Debus, proves it to be so) is in the perfect marriage ofmusic and subject matter. There's a sense of striving suspended instasis; a sense of progress that is not linear, but cyclical andtransformational. Or, in the words of the Baghavad-Gita, from whichthe libretto is made: "This is the fixed, still state whichsustains . . . the athletes of the Spirit."ENO has collaborated with the theatre group Improbable; and PhelimMcDermott, directing, with Julian Crouch as assistant director andset designer, have created a masterwork of theatrical intensity andintegrity. All three acts take place within an arc-like wall ofcurving corrugated iron. Within the slow waves of music and humanmovement, an ensemble of acrobats and puppeteers conjure miracleafter miracle. Newsprint looms large: there is a ubiquitouswhispering of newspaper as sheets are shifted, read (the founding ofIndian Opinion was central to Gandhi's work) — and then, almostimperceptibly, formed into gigantic papier-mâché puppet-figures ofgods, beasts and politicians.High in the iron wall, windows disclose the three iconic figures whowatch over the three acts: Tolstoy, Tagore and Martin Luther King. Asthe last act unfolds, the great wall buckles and disintegrates,leaving a miming silhouette of the preaching King high on his plinth,and the diminutive figure of Gandhi below, singing a simple risingscale — no fewer than 30 times.Image after image is etched indelibly on the memory, in its masterlyfusion of the aural and the visual. The beauty of the sung Sanskritis bewitching: sober sepia projections of key passages replacesupertitles; but verbal comprehension isn't really the point.Although it would be inappropriate to single out individualperformances in a work that has so little to do with conventionaloperatic glory, Alan Oke's central performance as Gandhi is amasterpiece of compelling clarity and absorption; and he is supportedadmirably by the magnificent chorus and a cast including the sopranoElena Xanthoudakis as his secretary, Miss Schlesen, the mezzo AnneMarie Gibbons as Kasturbai, his wife, and by Ashley Holland as MrKallenbach._______________________________