Philip Glass - Satyagraha
English National Opera, 2021
Carolyn Kuan, Phelim McDermott, Sean Panikkar, Musa Ngqungwana, William Thomas, Sarah Pring, Verity Wingate, Felicity Buckland, Gabriella Cassidy, James Cleverton, Ross Ramgobin
The London Coliseum - 28th October 2021
There aren't many contemporary operas by living composers that consistently draw audiences, but Philip Glass's Satyagraha is back this year for a third run (unless I've missed any) at the English National Opera, so I guess it must be popular. That's something I can testify to since it's also the third time I've been to see this production at the Coliseum in a well-attended close to sold-out theatre (in 2006/07 and 2009/10 seasons), not to mention even taking the opportunity to see the same production by Phelim McDermott when it was livestreamed from the Met in 2011 where I imagine it will also be regularly revived.
Indeed it may be McDermott's production that makes this an attractive prospect. There's no question that the colourful and creative set pieces work well with the music, but in an opera that is without a conventional narrative, that is written in Sanskrit and is fairly abstract in its treatment and subject, it is not so easy to say why it works so successfully. It is surely more than just spectacle, although that is evidently part of it, and the manner in which the Improbable team scale up simple ideas made out of paper, cardboard and sellotape to great theatrical effect is definitely impressive.
In some ways the simple grandeur of Satyagraha (as opposed to the busy grandeur for example of McDermott's almost equally excellent work for Akhnaten) aligns perfectly with the purpose of the opera. Ostensibly it's an opera about Gandhi, one of the famous three early Glass portrait operas, but the real purpose of the opera is of course to express an idea, Gandhi's idea of Satyagraha; achieving justice, change and peace through the truth force of nonviolent protest. It's this idea and the expression of it through the opera, through the music of Philip Glass at the peak of his creativity and originality (other opinions on Glass may vary) that are undoubtedly brought out or supported in the stage direction.
It's interesting in the meantime, since my last viewing of this opera production, to have seen McDermott's Tao of Glass at the Theatre Royal in Manchester in 2019. A semi-autobiographical piece, in it the director himself explored his relationship with the music of Philip Glass - in a very "Improbable" way of course - and by staging it as something magical it proved to be much more effective and enlightening than any interview with the director. The music of Philip Glass, despite what some critics might think, can touch deeply and in its hypnotic way perhaps even achieve an almost spiritual awakening. Or that was true at least of McDermott's experience.
The music of Glass for Satyagraha strives to achieve that impact as well, and it is capable of putting forward its theme with no need of any directorial assistance. Without even narrative reference to it in Constance de Jong's libretto - which just takes texts directly from the Bhagavad-Gita, Gandhi's inspiration for Satyagraha - the opera nonetheless chronologically follows the development of this theme and the autobiographical progress of Gandhi's path of non-violent protest in South Africa and India in its outline stage directions. It's also laid out in the actual titles of the three sections of the three acts of the opera also refer to the idea of Satyagraha throughout history, from Tolstoy and Tagore through to Martin Luther King.
Act 1 scene 1 (The Kuru Field of Justice) starts as it means to go on, already putting everything into place. It opens with the solo unaccompanied voice of Mohandas Gandhi, turns into a duet with Prince Arjuna and then a trio with Lord Krishna, and soon involves a whole chorus as the warring families prepare to do battle. From a single lone voice, the message spreads into a whole movement that has purity and strength of purpose to find a better course of action than violence. The music increases accordingly from a simple cello pattern to full orchestration (the limits of the original production leaving no room for brass section with a Glassian keyboard used to fill out the sound). Similar patterns are used for each scene in the other acts, the rhythmic pulse always present, the changes a little more dramatically inclined and more sudden in this opera than the typical repetitive music-with-changing-parts early-period Glass.
Phelim McDermott finds a simple and abstract way to illustrate each scene, while keeping the characters in traditional period costume and Gandhi in his familiar robes. Each scene of Julian Crouch's set is almost like a tableau vivante, with limited movement yet enough to give a sense of the setting for the staging of protests. Like the music, the director takes the time to slowly let the scene build, uses newspapers (the importance of the Indian Opinion newspaper as a channel to Gandhi's spreading of his message with no outside influence over the content), sellotape and corrugated cardboard cutouts. These can expand out match the huge scale and ambition of the work, the subject and the musical progression, with giant puppet figures battling each other, people floating up into the heavens and Tolstoy, Tagore and King present in little mini tableaux high up at the back of the stage.
There is plenty to enjoy in McDermott's staging that makes this worth repeated viewing, and seeing a Glass opera live in a theatre is always a worthwhile experience. It's enough clearly to keep drawing audiences back to see revivals of this work (and I expect back to Akhnaten again in the future). Perhaps more than anything however what is attractive about Satyagraha is the appeal of the subject and the unconventional abstract approach it takes towards getting its message across.
Much has happened in the world since the opera was written in 1980 and indeed much has happened even since the first performances of this production in 2007, but all of it seems to chime with or validate the idea of a 'truth force' or a force for truth against the tyranny of injustice. From the protests in Hong Kong to Black Lives Matter and Climate Change Extinction Rebellion protests, whatever your contemporary reference, Satyagraha has a very persuasive message that change can be achieved through peaceful protest, through "people power". The opera invites you to share in that idea and as an audience feel a part of something noble and perhaps even achievable.
That was very successfully put across on the final night of the current run of Satyagraha at the Coliseum. Carolyn Kuan's handling of the orchestra was excellent, meeting the uniquely challenging and unconventional demands of this work. One other thing that has changed in the meantime since I last saw the opera is that despite ingrained prejudice and fear of a "woke agenda", it is probably no longer sustainable for Caucasian actors to take on roles like Mohandas Gandhi, particularly when a singer of closer and more authentic ethnicity like Sean Panikkar shows what can be done when given the opportunity. He sings the role superbly with a clear, bright lyrical tenor. Aside from Gandhi, while there are defined roles, individual performances are less critical than the role they play in the ensemble, and the power of the work was fully felt through each of the singers and the chorus.
Links: English National Opera
