Wisdom's Fire; A review of the Met Satyagraha Live in HD

"When the motives and the fruits of a man's actions are freed from desire," sang baritone Kim Josephson as Mr. Kallenbach, "his works are burned clean by wisdom's fire."

Unlike most operas, the words that Josephson sang were not independently conceived texts, but were lines from the Bhagavad Gita sung in Sanskrit, that challenged the borders of thought, expression and prayer.

The McDermott and Crouch production of Satyagraha by Philip Glass expressed Gandhi's gradual identification with the poor, and the development of nonviolent protest, through new ways of seeing things. Common objects like paper and tape come to be understood as having new potentials revealed in wisdom's fire.

The Live in HD cameras provided intelligent angles on the production. It allowed us to move amongst the machinery and to understand the how the improvisational puppetry of The Skills Ensemble interacted with other layers of the performance. Richard Croft was a convincing Gandhi. He was able make his vocal colors an overtone of an otherworldly meditative stance; both present and eternal, of which Gandhi came to define. But something was missing.

The text itself proved a significant barrier during the Live in HD presentation. At the Met, texts were projected onto the walls of the set from time to time. As texts were projected they were also echoed as standard subtitles on the HD screen. The echo was distracting and not necessary.

The Met also tried a new and unique way to prepare for the text challenges in advance of the HD presentation. In addition to the usual one-page program, we were also given an English translation of the libretto in a 3-column format, front-and-back sheet made to look like a newspaper page. It is the first time that anything like this has ever been done. Still, that text was too small to read in the darkness of a cinema, and much of the time we remained outside of the words, even though they were echoed to us onscreen.


Glass has indicated that the text of the opera was meant to be "heard but not read." That is a welcome idea in our overly interpreted world, but it neglects the fact that the significance of the words within Gandhi's culture was that they would have been heard and understood. Understanding the words is the first step toward transcending them. The singing of the texts also sustains phrases repetitions. One brief projection did not sustain the ideas the way the musical setting intended for us to experience them.

When I heard the opera live at the Met the text issue seemed much less of a problem. Why? Because the conductor, Dante Anzolini, was visible the entire time. Anzolini has a unique and aesthetically significant way of articulating the metric patterns to the orchestra, and seeing his presence during a live performance at the Met makes the structure and intention of the music apparent. Throughout the score the succession of metric groupings and figurations constantly shift and when you can see the conducting patterns you can anticipate them. Becoming absolutely absorbed in the music itself is one key to the meditative quality that was sought.

In the Live in HD production, Anzolini was given camera time only briefly at the beginning of each act and did not get an interview during any of the backstage segments, yet we heard from Philip Glass during two different segments. This Live in HD presentation also spent too little time with the physicality of the music itself. This score requires a very distinct kind of counting, requires unusual endurance skills, and makes many other unusual demands on the Met orchestra. It would have been helpful to understanding the opera to have had the opportunity to explore this side of the music during the production.

The "desire" to remain onstage throughout the production may have prevented "wisdom's fire" from allowing us to absorb the music, anticipate its patterns, and find our way beyond the words.

Counting Glass; Bed from Einstein on the Beach

Musical counting is occasionally on the surface of the sound in Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass. This clip opens with numbers as text:

Numbers and calculations fill the sketches at [0:26].

"There was no need to tell a story," said director Robert Wilson [0:47], "we already knew a story. How this man who was a pacifist also contributed to the splitting of the atom."

Instead of narrative the opera presents movements and images, constructions and processes. "Structurally," said Glass, "the piece is, I think, self-revealing." He was referring to his work named "Strung Out" when he wrote that sentence in liner notes, but he could just as easily been talking about the music from Einstein on the Beach.

The most beautiful and poised section of "Einstein" is Act IV Scene 2, called Bed. It depicts Einstein laying in bed at night wondering if his inventiveness will lead to absolute destruction. There are no words in this scene, only non-verbal singing.

The movement uses four chords that loop in continual cycles: F Minor, E-flat Major, C Major, and D Major. Motion down a whole step from F minor to E-flat major is balanced by the rising whole-step motion from C major to D major, and the falling minor third between E-flat and C is mirrored by the rising minor third progression from D major to F minor as the progression regenerates.

The bass changes from C during the F minor chord, to G during the E-flat and C major harmonies, and is silent during the D major chord. The frictions of the triads against the bass and the lightness in texture of the final chord adds considerably to the impact of this musical idea.

The progression of four chords cycles through twice, then Glass adds beats to either the 1st and 3rd chords or to the 2nd and 4th chords in the progression. This "self-revealing" structure is hard to anticipate, but the length of the progression grows steadily throughout the movement. Each chord change is grouped in square brackets in the following diagram:

[4+3] [4] [4+3] [4]
[4+3] [4] [4+3] [4]

(Timing 0:17)
[4+3+2] [4] [4+3+2] [4]
[4+3+2] [4] [4+3+2] [4]

(Timing 0:37)
[4+3+2] [4+3] [4+3+2] [4+3]
[4+3+2] [4+3] [4+3+2] [4+3]

(Timing 1:02: the only time all groups are equal)
[4+3+2] [4+3+2] [4+3+2] [4+3+2]
[4+3+2] [4+3+2] [4+3+2] [4+3+2]

(Timing 1:30: change involving alteration and addition)
[4+3+3+4] [4+3+2] [4+3+3+4] [4+3+2]
[4+3+3+4] [4+3+2] [4+3+3+4] [4+3+2]

(Timing 2:06)
[4+3+3+4] [4+3+2+2] [4+3+3+4] [4+3+2+2]
[4+3+3+4] [4+3+2+2] [4+3+3+4] [4+3+2+2]

(Timing 2:45: Adding inside the sequence instead of at the end)
[4+3+3+3+4] [4+3+2+2] [4+3+3+3+4] [4+3+2+2]
[4+3+3+3+4] [4+3+2+2] [4+3+3+3+4] [4+3+3..3..3..3...fade out]

My trusty LP recording of Einstein includes five additional double cycles of chord progression that continue to grow--this recording has been edited. Einstein on the turntable trumps Einstein on the web.