Glass - Satyagraha (Paris, 2026)

Philip Glass - Satyagraha

Opéra National de Paris, 2026

Ingo Metzmacher, Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Ilanah Lobel-Torres, Olivia Boen, Davóne Tines, Amin Ahangaran, Adriana Bignagni Lesca, Deepa Johnny, Nicky Spence, Nicolas Cavallier, Alexander Bozinoff, Lorrin Brubaker, Jeremy Coachman Jonathan Fredrickson, Marion Gautier de Charnacé, Awa Joannais, Héloïse Jocqueviel, Payton Johnson, Rachel McNamee, Mermoz Melchior, Adrien Ouaki, Ido Toledano

Palais Garnier, Paris - 14th April 2026

Satyagraha is a multi-layered work, which is perhaps to state the obvious since that's true of any opera, but I think even more so in the case of Glass’s second opera. There is a noticeable shift away from the more experimental Einstein in the Beach, but Satyagraha still remains unconventional in its format and presentation, using conventional but reduced groups of acoustic instruments (strings and woodwind, no brass or percussion) that almost imitate the rapidly played Philip Glass Ensemble keyboard arpeggios alongside scenes with actual electronic keyboard flourishes. Each one of the work's layers, musical and conceptual, are however necessary and completely true to the nature and intent of the message of the "truth force" (Satyagraha) of non-violent resistance that it intends to put across in this medium; and indeed does so impressively, inspiring some spectacular stage productions over the years. The latest production at the Paris Opéra is no exception.

When I say layered, Satyagraha is layered in its whole conception, since it has complex conflicting ideas it wants to work through. Opera is the ideal medium for that of course, at the same time being flexible enough to allow Glass tremendous scope to innovate and remain true to his own voice. On one level the opera considers the dilemma of the warrior Arjuna in the ancient Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita as he is conflicted over his duty to join the battle or follow his own inner voice that rejects violence. On another level, Glass explores the influence of the work as the foundation of Mohandas Gandhi's movement of non-violent resistance through selected scenes from his life and applies it to how that message is taken forward through Rabindranath Tagore, Leo Tolstoy and Martin Luther King Jr. The music and singing provide another accumulative level to the emotional, philosophical and ideal truth force of non-violent resistance as a path to peace and justice, seeking to embody it less in narrative than in a trance-like meditation of the mantra-like delivery of the Sanskrit libretto.

Satyagraha already has these multiple layers built-in, but the stage production provides the opportunity for a creative director to add a few more and, based on past history of productions, such is the nature of the work and its subject that this opera can easily sustain them with overloading or detracting from its essential purpose. The spectacle of Phelim McDermott's production for the English National Opera (which I saw three times in its 2006/07, 2009/10 and 2021/22 seasons) which also transferred to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, adhered relatively closely to the journey of Gandhi in his path to resistance, or at least recognised it as the central focus of the work. In that production Constance De Jong's libretto taken from the Bhagavad Gita and sung in Sanskrit was not subtitled or translated as it was believed (with some merit) that the work and its message could speak for itself.

The new 2026 Paris production directed and choreographed by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber would beg to differ and accordingly they take a different course through the work presumably towards the same end. That's somewhat in the spirit of the whole Krishna-Arjuna dialogue in the Bhagavad Gita that underpins the work, in which the eternal struggle between the individual self and the higher Godself is resolved through the imperative of putting aside doubt and just taking action. The directors then choose to ditch the outline structure as it relates to Gandhi and instead explore the Arjuna narrative, in the process even removing the names of the principal singing characters, reducing them to voice types. In this refinement of the work - that nevertheless takes nothing away from it - it becomes more of a spiritual journey and that is enhanced through the focus on movement and dance rather than dramatic action.

The premise of this version is then made relatively simple, taking its lead from the opening scene's dialogue from the Bhagavad Gita between Arjuna and Krishna on the eve of the war between the Kuruvas and the Pandavas royal families. The outcome of Arjuna’s actions become the motivating force through the remainder of the opera in this production to rise above the individual desires and seek a higher purpose and truth. Set in what looks like a kind of assembly hall or rehearsal room with raised platforms and doors to the sides - with Gandhi, Tagore, Tolstoy and King looking on from above - in the first scene of Act I: The Kuru Field of Justice, a soldier in modern military uniform is manipulated into the killing of his fellow man by dark forces, both internal and external. A stage at the back of the hall which remains dark, light occasionally cutting through the mist, suggests that this is a space for an internal, emotional or personal journey. But it's not enough for this to be just a individual struggle to come to terms with one's own personal demons; the man has to reconcile his own belief in truth and justice with the reality of the outside world and bring others along with him to believe in the power of non-violent resistance.

If there is one key phrase in the libretto that might have inspired the directors and choreographers Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, it would seem to be the need to become "athletes of the spirit", as this is what is expressed in a production that aspires through movement and dance to match those heights of finding the truth force of Satyagraha achieved in the music and the singing. Glass's flowing rhythmic pulsating score for the opera is ideally suited for this approach, Glass having composed dance sections already for Lucinda Childs' choreography in sections of Einstein on the Beach and going on to create dance pieces for Twyla Tharp's In The Upper Room in 1986. Despite abandoning any traditional opera narrative, the ballet works just as effectively in the hands of Smith and Schraiber, each scene finding fresh ways to express aspects of the man in his internal struggle to reach a higher level, to be a better representative of what man can be in the battle with the corruption of the outside world. Figures then emerge out of the crowds and chorus to join and give strength to the movement.

The new Paris production of Satyagraha succeeds marvellously through its adherence to the spirit and spiritual element of the opera. In the central point of the opera, in Scene 2: Indian Opinion of Act II - Tagore (although the scene is no longer tied to the Gandhi narrative), the dancers step into a joined spiral of simple rhythmic dance steps in one of the most beautiful pieces in the production. It might look simple, but that's the beauty of it; it makes you feel like you want to get up and join them. That's also a quality within the work itself and within the deceptively simple repetitions of Philip Glass's music. In reality it's much more complex than it looks and sounds, in how it takes its time and builds, accumulating weight and meaning in its very structure and indeed movement, much more than just relying on words and narrative.

This is really Philip Glass’s Parsifal; a work that touches deep on what it means to be human and suffer in an imperfect world, but strive to achieve peace and inspire change that will save the world. Living in a time when injustice, inequality, violence and genocidal killing have reached new levels of obscenity, it's not hard to see how that sentiment is now more important than ever. What it also shows us - and which this production's focus and sense of movement highlights even more - is the history of the great names who have resisted through the years, showing that the battle still needs to be fought though the path of non-violent resistance. In that respect this is one modern opera that will endure because it has something that will always be relevant to the times, and it will always be important to remind ourselves of its message. Its form and conception are also key to its promise of longevity, the persuasive music showing how to rebuild and gain force though constant progression, reiteration and gradual change.

The unconventional orchestration and use of instruments - the orchestra essentially having to become an extended Philip Glass Ensemble without the same experience of performing this kind of fast flowing music of repetition and sudden changes - must present considerable challenges. The performance of the Paris orchestra under Ingo Metzmacher however was impressive and indeed persuasive, the delivery firm and seductive as it just washed across the Palais Garnier carrying everyone along with it. The singing likewise was extraordinarily good, as it can't but be in this opera, this time with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo coming from Akhnaten in the Glass 'Portrait Trilogy' to the principal (Gandhi) role here. Usually a high tenor part, Costanzo retained the sweetness of the timbre while still incredibly managing to cut through the ensembles and even (vitally) rise above the huge chorus scenes. All the voices and how they come across is important in Satyagraha and it couldn't have been better arranged and directed, all credit to chorus master Ching-Lien Wu. The dance choreography is stunning, but no more or less important than any other element, other than perhaps bringing a robustness that adds another dimension that further enhances the meaning of the work.

I remarked in my review of the Live in HD cinema broadcast of this opera at the Metropolitan Opera in 2011 that it seemed like Glass and this opera were finally receiving belated recognition, but with all nine performances of this new production of Satyagraha at the Paris Opéra selling out months ago (I was only able to pick up a return on the actual day of the performance), it's clear that both this uncompromising work and its composer have achieved a popular status that few could have imagined when it premiered in Rotterdam in 1980. I fully expect that that this production, like the hugely successful Phelim McDermott production, will be revived at some stage and see future new productions, but if you can't wait, a performance of this current run will be broadcast live on the pay-per-view Paris Opera Play (POP) streaming service on the 24th April.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play (POP)
Production photographs: Yonathan Kellerman, OnP

Glass - Akhnaten (London, 2019)

Philip Glass - Akhnaten

English National Opera, London - 2019

Karen Kamensek, Phelim McDermott, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Rebecca Bottone, James Cleverton, Colin Judson, Zachary James, Katie Stevenson, Keel Watson, Charlotte Shaw, Hazel McBain, Rosie Lomas, Elizabeth Lynch, Martha Jones, Angharad Lyddon

The Coliseum, London - 2 March 2019

36 years after it was first performed, it's still difficult to place Philip Glass's Akhnaten alongside either traditional or contemporary opera. Where it fits in Glass's repertoire is easier to identify. Akhnaten (1983) is the third part of the composer's Portrait Trilogy of operas, following Einstein on the Beach (1976) and Satyagraha (1980), three works still very much informed by Glass's experiments with minimalism or repetitive music with gradually changing parts. By Akhnaten we also see the composer move gradually away (with changing parts) from the rigid minimalism of his earlier works to incorporate more traditional forms and instrumentation, even if it still remains largely distinct from the classical idiom.

If it's still hard then to pin-down that 'in-between' cross-over period of Glass in the early eighties musically (for me personally his most interesting, creative and indeed even highly influential period, taking in his soundtracks to Mishima and Koyaanisqatsi), the visual presentation and performance aspect of any opera is vital to better assess the quality and nature of a work, and there Akhnaten aligns a little easier with a more traditional medium, albeit still (just about) within that cross-over experimental period that makes it more interesting. Essentially Akhnaten is Grand Opera, or the minimalist equivalent of Grand Opera.

Traces of the philosophy behind the artistic experimentalism of the New York scene of the 70s still remain in Akhnaten, not least Glass's early work with theatre director Robert Wilson and dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs. It's the overall concept or underlying philosophy behind the works in the Portrait Trilogy that are important and the influence that their central figures have over modern views on science (Einstein), politics (Gandhi) and religion (Akhnaten) are too expansive and intangible to be reductively made to fit a narrative.

Einstein on the Beach is the most abstract of the trilogy, Glass, Wilson and Childs collaboratively creating an environment for the music, theatre and dance to interact to create an alternative form of musical/theatrical narrative. Satyagraha is structured very differently, built around distinct real-life incidents in Gandhi's life, tying them to his influence on Tolstoy and Martin Luther-King and setting the whole thing to a libretto sung in Sanskrit and taken from the Bhagavad Gita. By the time we get to Akhnaten, there is still no clear or traditional narrative line to follow, but there is a linear progression of Akhnaten's coronation following the death of his father Amenhotep, his marriage to Nefertiti and his foundation of a new monotheistic religion.

The setting and ceremonial aspect of the situations (funeral, wedding, religion) perhaps makes it unavoidable, but in terms of presentation and performance, Akhnaten has less to do with the experimentation that informed Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha and resembles nothing so much as Aida. There's less of an effort to fit anti-war sentiments into a romantic melodrama narrative, and yet Akhnaten does have those qualities in its own peculiar way, and it certainly achieves an impact that is commensurate with Aida. Anyone who thinks that Glass's repetitive rhythms and arpeggios are mechanical and devoid of emotional content need only listen to the love duet of Act II to see that there is an expression as deeply romantic as any of the love duets and arias of Aida and Radamès.

After his spectacular new production of Satyagraha, it was inevitable that Phelim McDermott would be the director capable of putting a strong visual and thematic stamp upon Akhnaten. It proves to be one that not only matches the setting and period of the work in an otherworldly manner, but it works along with Glass's abstract presentation of the scenes that rely on ancient Egyptian texts and inscriptions, which are used not so much for 'authenticity' as for attaining an almost spiritual or transcendental dimension. In this Akhnaten's repetitive rhythms, marching beats and building crescendos are texturally much richer than the operas that precede it.

Another important quality to the presentation is simply engaging the audience's attention in the absence of any traditional musical or dramatic narrative; the audience still needs something to keep them amused during the long repetitive instrumental or chanted choral scenes that evidently are not subtitled (and wouldn't be all that more meaningful if they were). The idea of having a framing backdrop with posed figures like moving hieroglyphics is an obvious idea, and it does look spectacular. It doesn't strive for 'naturalism' otherwise it would (and indeed has in the past) just look like Aida. McDermott's stylisations, rather like the original English premiere of the work, go for an almost science-fiction world to emphasise the mysterious alien quality of ancient Egypt.

Other tableaux scenes are equally impressive in their lighting, colouration and movement, although for the latter McDermott relies too heavily here on jugglers; it's hypnotic for a few minutes, but nearly three hours of juggling routines is stretching it a bit. Those long building instrumental passages cry out for the kind of dance choreography Lucinda Childs would have provided or the abstract mood that Robert Wilson lighting and spacial geometrics might have produced. A troupe of jugglers throwing balls in the air only goes so far and certainly doesn't engage with the spiritual dimension that the opera aspires towards.

In terms of musical and singing performances however the ENO production is right on the mark. Akhnaten's arrangements have their own challenges and it can't be easy to balance those swirling keyboard runs with brass fanfares, flute and string arrangements, and get the choral and individual singers to weave through it all. Conductor Karen Kamensek however delivered a superbly hypnotic performance that hit the dramatic ceremonial high points and brought out the human emotional undercurrents superbly. Anthony Roth Costanzo really soars, his voice pure and otherworldly in this register to this type of score and Kate Stevenson is no less incredible alongside him. Rebecca Bottone also impresses as Queen Tye, the chorus are superb. With this kind of revival Akhnaten, like the other recently revived works in the Glass Portrait Trilogy, are proving to be special works that still hold a unique place in the world of opera.

Links: English National Opera

Ligeti - Le Grand Macabre (LSO, 2017)

György Ligeti - Le Grand Macabre

London Symphony Orchestra, 2017

Sir Simon Rattle, Peter Sellars, Peter Hoare, Ronnita Miller, Elizabeth Watts, Pavlo Hunka, Frode Olsen, Heidi Melton, Audrey Luna, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Peter Tantsits, Joshua Bloom, Christian Valle, Fabian Langguth, Benson Wilson

Barbican Hall, London - 14th January 2017

Maybe it's just a reflection of the strange times we are living in, but György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre actually seemed to make a lot of sense in this timely semi-staged version of the composer's difficult and absurd anti-anti-opera. If anything the world has become even more absurd than Ligeti could ever have imagined in these post-truth, hard Brexit leaning times, a week away from Donald Trump becoming the President of the USA. Honestly, the goings-on on the stage at the Barbican made more sense and were more credible than last night's news. Truly, it seems that we are now living in Breughelland.

That's a tribute really to Peter Sellars, a director who has worked with Ligeti and who was instrumental in convincing the composer to work on the revised 1997 version of Le Grand Macabre, but it's also to the credit of Simon Rattle and the LSO, who unexpectedly turned a concert performance of this work into a revelatory experience. A semi-staged performance barely seems adequate for this work, nor does a serious treatment of it seem appropriate, but remarkably the comic absurdity and difficult music produced what turned out to be a meaningful, invigorating and thought-provoking experience at the first of its brief run of two performances at the Barbican.

The challenges of performing Le Grand Macabre, not to mention the relatively small specialised audience that it would appeal to, mean that we don't often get a chance to see this opera staged. If you were to rely solely on the most recent UK production of the work directed by La Fura dels Baus at the Coliseum, you would likely then only have a view of one side of the work where the emphasis is on the irreverence, the surreal, the vulgarity and the spectacle and it's unlikely that you would really have connected with any of the deeper content or message in the work. Sellars and Rattle show however that there is another side to Le Grand Macabre, many sides even, and in the process they show why consideration of a variety of interpretations of any work of art is important.

If there was one essential element or key theme in Le Grand Macabre that the La Fura dels Baus production and Peter Sellars share, it's the idea of the opera taking place in an apocalyptic end-of-times moment. Hence its absurdity. It's no surprise either that for Peter Sellars - who has collaborated with John Adams as the librettist for Doctor Atomic - the expression of that apocalyptic theme takes the form of us being on the brink of nuclear Armageddon. As Ligeti and his family experienced some of the worst horrors of the Holocaust and the Cold War, this is certainly a theme that is present as a dark undercurrent to the work.

There's not a lot of stage dressing needed to make this theme apparent in a semi-staged version. There are a couple of barrels of glowing toxic nuclear waste to both sides of the stage, but most of the context is relayed through screen projections at the back of the stage. Nick Hillel's video footage and projections are not just the familiar imagery you might expect, although mushroom clouds are certainly shown and there is footage of the meltdown of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, but there is also a certain amount of humour at the irony and the horror of the nuclear arms race, a tone that is entirely appropriate within the context of Ligeti's work.

The realisation that it's all madness and that death is just around the corner seems to come to nuclear corporate executive Piet the Pot while doing a presentation for 'Clean Futures' at a Nuclear Energy Summit (London - Berlin 2017). He's taken a few drinks to steady himself for presenting something he presumably no longer believes in, so the combination of stage nerves and the alcohol seems to play havoc with the reality that he sees around him. The words of his colleagues in white lab coats, Armando and Armanda, seems suddenly suggestive and erotically inclined towards death, while his boss seems to materialise before his eyes in the form of Nekrotzar, Le Grand Macabre.

There are limits to how far you can take that kind of absurdity with all Ligeti's accompanying unconventional and often atonal music, and it's particularly difficult to sustain such a relatively thin premise across four scenes. The message, you would think, has been made abundantly clear very quickly indeed and the second scene between the astrologer Astradamors and his wife Mescalina seems to have little to add to the absurd situation. Nekrotzar's assumption of Astradamors' marital duties - carried out via the emotional distancing of an on-line chatroom here - is hammered home at the end of Act II with a map of the world being blasted with an infographics display of all the nuclear bombs that have been detonated since 1945. It's horrifying to imagine the damage that must have been inflicted not only on the the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in those first bombs, but also the scale of the cumulative environmental impact of such tests.

It's the quality of the work itself and its deeper meaning that reasserts itself in the second half, or rather it is assertively deployed by Sellars, Rattle, the LSO and an exceptional cast of singers. Geoffrey Skelton's English translation also makes a stronger impression when it has been placed in this context, the libretto's nonsense verse, wordplay, alliteration and invention revealed to be very clever and witty, revelling in the absurdity of all the madness and death of Nekrotzar's war machine. Witty and inclined to make you laugh, but not in itself laughable. This is a deadly serious business and seen in the light of where we stand now - god help us - Ligeti's stance seems to be the only irrational response towards it.

The key factor in carrying the work through to its dark meditations is unquestionably the performance of Audrey Luna in Scene III as Gepopo the Chief of the Secret Police. In semi-staged concert performance, there wasn't perhaps the ability to present Gepopo in his three disguises as bird of prey, a spider and an octopus, but all the colour and drama in this character were brilliantly expressed and conveyed by Luna, strapped down into a bed on the stage, singing directly into a camera that projected her performance at the back of the stage. In combination with Anthony Roth Costanzo's beautiful countertenor Prince Go-Go it created an extraordinary impression, Luna's stratospheric babblings more intelligible and coherent than the average Donald Trump speech.

The same level of commitment was evident throughout a work that is filled with singing and dramatic challenges. The LSO assembled an impressive cast here for these performances at the Barbican, with Heidi Melton deserving mention for the particularly difficult Mescalina, Frode Olsen fearlessly pushing the depths of the bass role as Astradamors and Pavlo Hunka an imposing presence as Nekrotzar. There were some gorgeous lyrical moments from the combined singing of Ronnita Miller and Elizabeth Watts as Armando and Amando, contrasting terrifically with Peter Hoare's gradual derangement and disintegration as Piet the Pot. Sellars also made great use of the whole Barbican Hall for the chorus, with individual musicians and singers popping up on all of the levels, ensuring a surround sound experience that included the audience as citizens of Brueghelland.

What the semi-staged concert performance permitted above all else however was that it literally places Ligeti's music centre stage, and that was nothing less than revelatory. It's very easy for the true nature of Ligeti's music for Le Grand Macabre to get lost in all the absurdity so that it sound like nothing but wildly diverse and fractured accompanying noise, with atonal parodies of Beethoven and other forms of music, but Simon Rattle and the LSO showed how consistent and of-a-piece the music is. Its little miniatures are expressive of the moment, alternately skittish and playful, darkly reflective or shrilly terrifying, but they all contribute to the greater impact and rich tone of the work in its totality.

It's hard to say that it's Ligeti's greatest work, but Le Grand Macabre is certainly his most sustained and demanding piece; richly dynamic, a compendium of all the extravagance, experimentation, absurdity and inventiveness that are characteristic of the composer. In the form of this opera and in the light of where we are today, the dark undercurrents from Ligeti's personal experiences that inspire the themes of Le Grand Macabre now suddenly seem all too apparent and relevant.

Links: LSO, Peter Sellars talks Le Grand Macabre

Britten - Death in Venice (Teatro Real, 2014 - Webcast)

Benjamin Britten - Death in Venice

Teatro Real, Madrid - 2014

Alejo Pérez, Willy Decker, John Daszak, Leigh Melrose, Tomasz Borczyk, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Duncan Rock, Itxaro Mentxaka, Vicente Ombuena, Antonio Lozano, Damián del Castillo, Nuria García Arrés, Ruth Iniesta

Culturebox - December 2014

While on the surface Death in Venice is about much more than an old man's attraction to a boy's youth and beauty, it is the key to the essential conflict that the aging writer Gustav von Aschenbach struggles with on so many levels. In Death in Venice, the struggle extends to old age meeting youth, beauty confronted by ugliness, art versus mediocrity, fame or obscurity, control over submission and ultimately, of course, life versus death. Venice, a city of contrasts, embodies all of von Aschenbach's fears; a place of incredible beauty and allure that is fading and slowly crumbling into the sea, succumbing inevitably to the forces of nature.

Accordingly, most productions of Britten's Death in Venice tend to emphasise the beauty of Venice (I don't believe you can exaggerate it) without however really considering its dark corrupting side. Like Deborah Warner's acclaimed and successful production for the English National Opera, Willy Decker's production for the Teatro Real in Madrid is visually magnificent, but its clean modern minimalist designs don't seem to be the most natural way of probing beneath the surface to explore the slow decline of Venice alongside that of von Aschenbach, something that the writer seems to anticipate on his way there. 'Ah Serenissima!' '...where water is married to stone', 'what lies in wait for me here, ambiguous Venice?'

As with Warner's production, there are other less obvious ways to create the sense of unease that is evoked in the imagery of the libretto - Aschenbach's journey on a gondola to the Lido compared to crossing the Styx in a black coffin - and in Britten's music. Without intending to be disparaging, since it proves to be largely effective, what Willy Decker brings to the work is a sense of camp, where Aschenbach's desire to hold onto his dignity and reputation is in sharp contrast to the common and vulgar displays he encounters in the city. The first encounter is the most ominous; a kiss planted on him by an old traveller fooling around and having fun, made up to look younger than he really is.

There has to be an attraction there too however and this lively scene along with the handsome costume and set design of the production, can be seen to exert a strong first impression on von Aschenbach as he begins a journey of no return. A seductive rather than a stuffy elegance would be a better way to describe the tone of Decker's production designs. There's a blending of period costumes - the white linen suits and dressed of the holiday makers iconically familiar from Visconti's movie version of Mann's novella - mixed here with immaculate, shiny, minimalist location settings, that does succeed in establishing the kind of contrast and ambiguity that Venice in the opera represents.

That gives the work a freshness here, avoiding cliché or simple representation, while still adhering to the intent of the libretto. "There's a dark side even to perfection", von Aschenbach observes, and he notes the clever thought down in his notebook, always seeking to rationalise instead of feel. But there's an attractive allure to this dark side that the Madrid production captures well, the ornate classical mixing with the clean unadorned modernism, with just a hint of the exotic that is there also in Britten's score. These elements sit a little uneasily side-by-side but, particularly in the way that they are captured in Decker's production, they can also be complementary.

If the production looks terrific and works well enough with the material, it plays a little safe and doesn't entirely manage to achieve the desired impact by the end. Tadzio, for example, is well-characterised as if he could just be an ordinary boy, not one who is flirting on some level with von Aschenbach. The attraction and objectification is entirely on the part of the writer and his imagination, even if his being observed doesn't escape the boy's notice. This is always likely to be the case, but unless you see Tadzio the way Aschenbach does, it's a little harder to 'sympathise' with the confusion that this personification of classical beauty exerts upon him.

There are some good directorial touches that attempt to make this relationship explicit. The playfully dropped red ball is a good visual image for the connection between them, the dancing and choreography kept simplified and expressive, and there's a Punch and Judy show that does give some indication of the state of mind of von Aschenbach in his obsession. The singing is also exceptionally good from John Daszak in the principal role - one that has to be to really carry the work - with good support from Leigh Melrose as the traveller and the other minor parts, but there is never any real sense of how the sequence of events leads to any noticeable decline in Aschenbach.  The musical interpretation conducted by Alejo Pérez doesn't really manage to get the essence of this across either.

Links: Culturebox, Teatro Real