Ashley: Perfect Lives

Robert Ashley (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Robert Ashley
• Audio CD (October 26, 1992)
• Number of Discs: 3
• Label: Lovely Music
• ASIN: B00000IOA9
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,488 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #39 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Languages > English
  • #47 in Music > Dance & DJ > Techno > Minimal Techno
  • #51 in Music > Indie Music > Classical

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helped to redefine contemporary American opera!, August 4, 1999

By 

Dr. Stephen Hicks (Manchester, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ashley: Perfect Lives (Audio CD)

"Dear George...I'm not the same person that I used to be..." Ashley's 'Perfect Lives' has a long history, dating from the late 1970s, and exists in many different forms. This CD is the only available complete version of what Ashley calls an 'opera for TV in 7 half-hour episodes'. A classic of 'minimalism', the work also redefined 'opera' with its use of video imagery. The music itself acts as a 'pulse' or beat, often deliberately banal yet quite mesmerisingly beautiful (the 'cocktail piano' style of "Blue" Gene Tyranny), over which is spoken/sung a strange series of narrative monologues. Part of his larger opera trilogy (see 'Atalanta' (pt 1) and 'Now Eleanor's Idea' (pt 3), 'Perfect Lives' is rich in imagery (which you won't get from the CD alone), poetic narrative, chance events and musical experimentation. Along with Meredith Monk or Laurie Anderson, surely one of the most important works for rethinking 'opera' and incorporating new technologies into composition..."He took himself seriously...motel rooms had lost their punch for him..."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great American Opera, August 28, 2008

By 

William Michaels (Hillsborough, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ashley: Perfect Lives (Audio CD)

In my opinion, this is the 8th-greatest opera ever written, and the greatest American, English-language, and 20th-century opera. Far from being "minimalist," this masterpiece is a continuous deluge of gorgeous musical and verbal improvisation. Each of the seven parts has its own unique musical and philosophical environment, but they all form a greater unity unmatched in opera (matched in music only by Swan Lake). It is a crime that this has not been given a public performance at, e.g., the Met. Totally tonal. Very highly recommended (but not for the faint-hearted).

If you're interested, my candidates for #1-7, in descending order, are Das Rheingold, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute (without spoken dialog), Tristan, Die Walkure, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, and Carmen.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heavenly dreamy inspiration., October 7, 2010

By 

delila blu - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ashley: Perfect Lives (Audio CD)

Robert Ashley is a pretty obscure composer, and being a musician of a certain genre-indie/bluesy/gypsy/electro yeah yeah yeah but basically: pop, and a woman of a certain age: twenty-five, I often get strange looks when I tell people I listened to Perfect Lives every day while writing my album. And then I pop it in, and the looks go from strange to baffled.

It's kind of spoken word; Ashley called it in opera for lack of a better term, and to many people of Gen X or beyond, it might bring up associations of bad William Shatner recordings or a Broadway musical or a beat poetry reading, causing a poor initial reaction.

But it is just a dreamy trip through consciousness and beauty and self reflection and irony and word play and I recommend just putting it on, and letting it play, play in the background without paying attention if you don't want. Just keep letting it play, as it seeps into your soul, coloring your lens forever.