Satyagraha is a 1979 opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in three acts for orchestra, chorus and soloists, composed by Philip Glass

Philip Glass

Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...

, with a libretto by Glass and Constance DeJong.

Loosely based on the life of Mohandas K. Gandhi, it forms the second part of Glass's "Portrait Trilogy" of operas about men who changed the world, which also includes Einstein on the Beach

Einstein on the Beach

Einstein on the Beach is an opera that premiered on July 25, 1976 at the Avignon Festival in France, scored and written by Philip Glass and designed and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson. It also contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs...

and Akhnaten

Akhnaten (opera)

Akhnaten is an opera in three acts based on the life and religious convictions of the pharaoh Akhenaten , written by the American minimalist composer Philip Glass in 1983. Akhnaten had its world premiere on March 24, 1984 at the Stuttgart State Opera, under the German title Echnaton...

.

Glass's style can broadly be described as minimalist

Minimalist music

Minimal music is a style of music associated with the work of American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School....

, but the music in Satyagraha is somewhat more expansive than is implied by that label. The work is scored for 2 sopranos, 2 mezzo-sopranos, 2 tenors, a baritone, 2 basses, a large SATB

SATB

In music, SATB is an initialism for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, defining the voices required by a chorus or choir to perform a particular musical work...

 chorus, and an orchestra of strings and woodwinds only, no brass or percussion. Principal roles are Miss Schlesen, M.K. Gandhi, Mr. Kallenbach and Parsi Rustomji.

The title refers to Gandhi's concept of non-violent resistance to injustice, Satyagraha

Satyagraha

Satyagraha , loosely translated as "insistence on truth satya agraha soul force" or "truth force" is a particular philosophy and practice within the broader overall category generally known as nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. The term "satyagraha" was conceived and developed by Mahatma...

, and the text, from the Bhagavad Gita

Bhagavad Gita

The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...

, is sung in the original Sanskrit. In performance, translation is usually provided in supertitles.

Performance history

Satyagraha was commissioned by the city of Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

, Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, and first performed at the Stadsschouwburg (Municipal Theatre) there on September 5, 1980, by the Netherlands Opera and the Utrecht Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bruce Ferden.

Its North American premiere was at the Artpark in Lewiston, New York, on July 29, 1981. That same year it was staged by the Stuttgart Opera (which went on to perform the complete trilogy in 1990); this production was taped during its revival in 1983 and released on video. The UK premiere was given by Leeds Youth Opera

Leeds Youth Opera

Leeds Youth Opera is an acclaimed opera company for 12- to 25-year-olds, based in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The Yorkshire Post newspaper described the group as a '...national cultural treasure...' -Background:...

; the first professional UK production was at the Midland Arts Centre, Birmingham, in 1999.

In 2007 a new UK staging was prepared by the English National Opera

English National Opera

English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...

 and Improbable theatre

Improbable theatre

Improbable theatre is a UK theatre company founded in 1996 by Lee Simpson, Phelim McDermott, Julian Crouch and producer Nick Sweeting. Improbable is funded by Arts Council England, London. The theatre company has produced twelve shows...

, co-produced by the Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 in New York. This opened in London in April and in New York the following April. Well received, it was revived in London in February 2010 and in New York in November 2011; the New York performance on November 19 was part of the Met Opera: Live in HD series.

Act 1

Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...

• On the Kuru Field of Justice
• Tolstoy Farm (1910)
• The Vow (1906)

Act 2

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...

• Confrontation and Rescue (1896)
• Indian Opinion (1906)
• Protest (1908)

External links

• Satyagraha at PhilipGlass.com
• The Truth Force at the Met Daniel Mendelsohn
  Daniel Mendelsohn
  -Life and career:Mendelsohn was born on Long Island. He graduated with a B. A. in Classics from the University of Virginia, which he attended from 1978 to 1982 as an Echols Scholar, and received his M. A. and Ph. D. in Classics from Princeton University, where he was a Mellon Fellow in the...
  
   review of Satyagraha from The New York Review of Books
  The New York Review of Books
  The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
  
  
• Libretto at The Metropolitan Opera