FULL Satyāgraha Redux (Philip Glass) Oslo 2024 Ultima Contemporary Music Festival
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Satyāgraha
- Composer: Glass Philip
- Libretto: Philip Glass, Constance DeJong Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Norwegian National Opera House, Oslo, Norway
- Recorded: September 14, 2024
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Hannah Edmunds, Guro Thronæs-Sivertsen, Mathilda Goike, Solvi Skogstad, Jonathan Bjørnseth, Eric Korsnes, Mattis Austrheim, Ulrik Stensrød
- Conductor: Magnus Loddgard
- Orchestra: Musikkhøgskolens sinfonietta
- Choreographer: Anne-Linn Akselsen
- Stage Director: Anne-Linn Akselsen
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Human Works
- Date Published: 2024
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: nosubs
- Video Recording from: Vimeo FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
In the 1960s, composer Philip Glass was inspired by a trip to India where he learned of Gandhi’s energy and moral courage. This led to the composition of Satyāgraha (1979), a minimalist opera about justice and peace, and a spiritual leader who changed the course of history.
Civil rights activist Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) became the figurehead of India’s anti-colonial resistance. He encouraged his followers to protest peacefully with an attitude he named ‘satyāgraha’, meaning, in sanskrit, holding insistently to the truth. The original sanskrit libretto by Constance DeJong draws from the ancient scripture Bhagavad Gita. It builds parallels between mythological struggles from Hinduism and Gandhi’s own struggles during his early years in South Africa.
This shortened version of Glass’s opera is performed by MA students from the Academy of Opera, and BA contemporary dance students from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and the sinfonietta of Norwegian Academy of Music. The projected text is developed by students from the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, and acts as a counter-libretto to DeJong’s original text. Glass’s cyclic, repetitive music blends solo voices with synthesizers, strings and woodwinds. In this special staging with dance and video, physical movements interweave with music and text in a continuous flow. Time is suspended, inviting to a meditation on Ghandi’s message, and the meaning that various forms of resistance might have today.
Quoted from ultima.no