# Philip Glass's operas?



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Anyone familiar with them / like them?


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

Satyagraha is a truly magnificent piece of music and drama


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

I love Akhnaten too. My favourite libretto quote comes from there

"Open are the double doors of the horizon"


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

i'll get both. they're really inexpensive now.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Akhnaten is my favourite. Try Kepler. There's an entire performance of it on YouTube. The subtitles are in German though, so I couldn't really understand it! Another one of my favourites: Einstein on the Beach. The term "opera" in that sense goes back to the meaning of "works." Not _exactly_ and opera in traditional "opera sense" but usually still referred to as an opera.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

So far, I've heard Einstein, Akhenaten , and Satyagraha on CD, and I've been watching Kepler on DVD, which I just took out from my library. 
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Kepler on DVD; the others seemed impossibly repetitious to me on CD. I guess the visual aspect of the DVD helps somewhat , and the music of Kepler also seemed somewhat less annoying and more varied to me than the others .


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Glass seems to be moving towards neo-romanticism in his later works.


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## rsmithor (Jun 30, 2011)

*Orphée Philip Glass*





Scenes from Ensemble Parallèle's 2011 production of Philip Glass' Orphée... San Francisco

Orphée was the highlight of the Portland Opera's 2009 season...

"This opera is based on Jean Cocteau's great B&W film Orpheus. The film itself is hypnotic, like a living dream . . . in my view, one of the greatest films. Glass has taken his libretto from the screenplay, with appropriate cuts. Glass's music also can have a sensual, hypnotic effect . . . and the opera is spellbinding." Amazon reviewer "Customer"...

Background info from Portland Opera Web site...

A triumph of love & perseverance...

Fresh, new love may have its distinct passion. But married love adds a depth and breadth to that passion, binding two souls tightly into a single being. Such is the love between Orphée and his beloved Eurydice-one of the deepest, truest loves of all time.

Philip Glass-the most renowned and often produced opera composer of our time- carefully follows the script of Jean Cocteau's 1949 film Orphée. Mining such rich mythology, he creates a work of remarkable power that celebrates the potency of love and loyalty.

The delicacy and simplicity of the music highlight the powerful range of emotions that the characters-and all of us-experience in the course of this "must see" opera.

The Portland Opera/West Coast premiere of a production the New York Times called "stunning."

Cast
Princessa ... Lisa Saffer
Eurydice ... Georgia Jarman
Heurtebise ... Ryan MacPherson
Orphee ... Philip Cutlip

Conductor ... Anne Manson
Stage Director ... Sam Helfrich

Orange Mountain Music Releases Orphée CD Recording


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## Cygnenoir (Dec 21, 2011)

I've fallen in love with the "Hymn to the Sun" from Akhnaten. It's just a wonderful hymn! More romantic than minimalistic. "The funeral of Amenhotep III" and "City/Dance" from the same opera, is some powerful music! It's stuck in my head 
This is a great example of the greatness in minimalism - "Less is more"! :lol:


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## andi (Feb 11, 2012)

thangk


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## Bardamu (Dec 12, 2011)

Of the few I've listened I liked Kepler the most.
Then I thought Satyagraha was a bit better than Akhnaten ( both worth a listening ).

Einstein on the Beach is an ear rape though.


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## aaron (Feb 14, 2012)

My favourite libretto quote comes from there


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Bardamu said:


> Of the few I've listened I liked Kepler the most.
> Then I thought Satyagraha was a bit better than Akhnaten ( both worth a listening ).
> 
> Einstein on the Beach is an ear rape though.


Out of the operas from the Trilogy, I've always preferred the use of dissonance and the absence of violins in Akhnaten to his other operas. A more recent opera, "Waiting for the Barbarians," I've always found enticing.

And what on earth do you mean by "ear rape?"


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## abel (Feb 15, 2012)

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Kepler on DVD


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## Bardamu (Dec 12, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> And what on earth do you mean by "ear rape?"


It grated my ears.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Bardamu said:


> It grated my ears.


I love Einstein on the Beach.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Akhnaten is my favourite. Try Kepler.


Have yet to get round to _Kepler_.

I played through _Akhnaten_ on CD. In places it has that brilliantly Glassian sense of forboding -- the lack of violins contribute to that. _Window of Appearances _ from Act I is a highlight.

I heard Act I from _Satyagraha_ and it's works like these where the repetitions are probably taken too far, lol.


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