satyagraha on stage

For this year's opera season, I got season tickets for a collection of the opera classics, like Carmen, La Traviata, La Boheme, and such. But I got one-off tickets for Satyagraha, by Philip Glass, an opera about Ghandi and his years in South Africa, highlighting how he becomes an influential leader. This is a contemporary opera - it's not a tragic love story...the performance is in Sanskrit, the melodic language of the Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord), to which Gandhi referred daily...titles are projected on the stage (not by your seat)...the music is chant-like...the non-chronological scenes jump back and forth in time...the stage is quite stark. In all honesty, I was struck with confusion when the curtains came down for Act 1 and some scenes seem to last a little too long. But please, this is the Met - they don't fool around or dare to waste your time. As the subtle and minimalist music continues, your eyes feast on the set visuals. Although abstract and at first glance, a bit drab, you realize that the crew is using simple materials, like newspaper, to create something spectacular. Simple newspaper, that in one scene represents the "Indian Opinion" newsletter that Ghandi started, becomes a surface to project text on, then gets rolled up to form a big moving ball, and ends up as a 20 ft tall paper puppet on stage. This is the work of Improbable theater company in London and their Skills Ensemble cast who seem to improvise their art on stage. "We wanted similarly to take these materials, maybe associated with poverty, and see if we could do a kind of alchemy with that, turn them into something beautiful." Is quite impressive and memorable.

Have a wonderful weekend all~