Customer Reviews

Ashley: Perfect Lives

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"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..."

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.

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.

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.