The Cave is a multimedia 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 by Steve Reich

Steve Reich

Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...

 to an English libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by his wife Beryl Korot

Beryl Korot

-Biography:Beryl Korot has pioneered the field of video art since the early 1970s. She was co-editor of Radical Software , the first publication to discuss the possibilities of the new video medium, and Video Art with Ira Schneider...

. It was first performed in 1994 by the Steve Reich Ensemble

Steve Reich and Musicians

Steve Reich and Musicians, sometimes credited as the Steve Reich Ensemble, is a musical ensemble founded and led by the American composer Steve Reich to perform his compositions. This ensemble has premiered many of Reich's works and has performed his works more than any other...

 and conducted by Paul Hillier

Paul Hillier

Paul Douglas Hillier is a conductor, music director and baritone. He specializes in early music and contemporary art music, especially that by composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Guildhall School of Music, beginning his professional career while a...

.

The title "The Cave" refers to The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron

Hebron

Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...

.

Plot

Steve Reich and Beryl Korot asked questions such as "Who is Sarah?" and "Who is Ismael?" and recorded answers that were given by Israeli, Palestinian and American interviewees. This way they were able to build up an impression of the varying ways that these three groups of people view the story of Abraham/Ibrahim and his immediate family. Brief spoken extracts from the interviews were used both as they were, and also as repeated musical phrases based on the prosody

Prosody (linguistics)

In linguistics, prosody is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance: the emotional state of the speaker; the form of the utterance ; the presence of irony or sarcasm; emphasis, contrast, and focus; or other elements of...

of the words spoken. These passages were interspersed with other recordings which primarily included readings of the story of Abraham as it is recounted in various religious texts, as can be seen from the section headings listed below.

Act I

1. Typing Music (Genesis XVI)
2. Who is Abraham?
3. Genesis XII
4. Who is Sarah?
5. Who is Hagar?
6. Typing Music Repeat
7. Who is Ismael?
8. Genesis XVIII
9. Who is Isaac?
10. Genesis XXI
11. The casting out of Ishmael and Hagar
12. Machpelah Commentary
13. Genesis XXV (chanted in Hebrew from the Torah by Ephrim Isaac)
14. Interior of the Cave

Act II

1. Surah 3 (chanted in Arabic from the Koran by Sheikh Dahoud Atalah, Muqri of Al-Aksa Mosque)
2. Who is Ibrahim?
3. Who is Hajar?
4. The near sacrifice
5. El Khalil Commentary
6. Interior of the cave

Act III

1. Who is Abraham?
2. Who is Sarah?
3. Who is Hagar?
4. Who is Ishmael?
5. The Binding of Isaac
6. The Cave of Macpelah

External links

• [ Review on Allmusic]
• Two interviews with Steve Reich by Bruce Duffie; The second (from November, 1995) has long discussion about The Cave