Satyagraha, English National Opera
I think it was Woody Allen who said ‘I’ll try anything once, except incest and line-dancing’ – not a bad credo to have. In that vein I did something different last night, I went to the Opera. I’ve been a Philip Glass fan for many years now, not just his great soundtracks but also his operas, specifically Akhnaten which is terrific but I’d never heard Satyagraha before which is enjoying a critically lauded run at the English National Opera just off Trafalgar Square. It was quite an experience.
I’ll keep this short as I’m a little out of my depth here but this was fucking awesome. I think we’ve established that I like the movies but there is something to be said for the vivacity of seeing a live performance unfurl in front of you, especially when it is scored by a full orchestra and the amazing voices of the, um, singers – I’m not sure what the correct terminology is when you get to this stuff. The way that the set collapsed and dismantled itself into new settings coupled with the projection of Ghandi’s quotes kept the story bubbling along, the impression I came away with was of a glimpse of the pacifists early life and enormous contribution to 20th century human civilisation, culminating with a truly moving connection to Martin Luther King and his similarly historic legacy to convince people to actually be nice to each other, to respect everyone and stop fucking each other over. Or something. There were parts when the music swelled up that had the hairs on my arms standing up, absolutely riveting stuff. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any footage of this run of the Opera on youtube yet (apart from this poor quality clip) so I’ll have to make do with excerpts from other performances over the years, hopefully they will give you a flavour of the evening, all three and a half hours of it which elapsed in what felt a third of that.
Some more:
and some more:
I’ll close with this incredible fusion of sound and images from the majestic Koyaanisqatsi, a throughly stunning piece of work that I watch every year:
EDIT = yeah, OK, this is the best bit:
….and the rest…..
Minty's Menagerie 
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