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48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Opera Grows Up,
By
This review is from: Philip Glass: Waiting for the Barbarians (Audio CD)
Philip Glass and librettist Christopher Hampton have adapted J. M. Coetzee's parable about power and inhumanity in an opera that staggers in both dramatic power and beauty. The story is set in a town on the fringes of a nameless Empire that is in the process of expanding over the lands of wandering peoples called The Barbarians. As settlers encroach on grazing lands, the Barbarians are led to raid a few cattle, the same solution that Native Americans were forced into as European settlers forged westward. The Empire's response is very contemporary, however, fabricating a threat and confirming it through "confessions" made under torture. As the army takes over and terrorizes the town, its inhabitants are fanned into a frenzy of fear that allows them to accept militarization as normal and necessary. The town's Magistrate is overwhelmed by both guilt and confusion which he attempts to assuage by befriending the Barbarian Girl, a young woman who had been partially crippled and partially blinded by the torture. When the Magistrate returns the Barbarian Girl to her people, he is accused of treason for aiding the enemy, and he is himself imprisoned and tortured, a process he accepts as both expiation and education. When the army, defeated by the desert, abandons the town, a wiser Magistrate begins to lead the people back to normalcy imbued with a new sense of justice.
The musical style of Waiting for the Barbarians is far removed from that of Philip Glass's famous early trio of operas, Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten, since it relies on a continuously moving dramatic narrative rather than set pieces. The orchestration is ravishingly melodic with amazingly varied orchestral colours, against which the vocal line provides a counterpoint. In evidence here is Glass's ability to paint pictures with music, a skill honed on the text-less films of Godfrey Reggio, as when it describes an imperial garden or a buck deer drinking at a pond. This combination of melody and colour also paints vivid pictures of the content of the action that is never more powerful than when it brings out the unstated subtext. For example, the Magistrate's act of unwrapping the bandages on the Barbarian girl's feet to examine the damage is accompanied by rapturous music of almost unbearable beauty. In his next scene with the Barbarian Girl, the Magistrate chats with her simply about her work and living conditions at the same time that he bathes her, and again music of swirling intensity brings out the emotional connection that the bath implies. Christopher Hampton's libretto brilliantly condenses the novel into a series of scenes, including the novel's dreamscapes as orchestral interludes that allow a meditative pause between the dramatic events. The characters are also carefully drawn by differences in language. Colonel Joll, the expedition leader and "interrogator" is ultra-refined (his music is slithery-slick) while his foil and henchman, Officer Mandel, is brash and crude. Likewise the Magistrate is overly introspective and intellectual while his foil, the Barbarian Girl is matter-of-fact. Hampton has also made a few changes in the plot and characters to bring out the kind of closure that is useful in the dramatic arc required of an operatic performance. He has joined the character of the cook and her daughter into a single person. The opera's cook appears to be secretly attached to the Magistrate and stands by while he repeatedly has sex with Star, the woman he can't love, and develops a love relationship with the Barbarian Girl, the woman with whom he is reluctant to have sex. But as in Goldilocks and the three bowls of porridge, he ultimately realizes that the cook is "just right." The opera ends on note of hope on multiple levels. The Magistrate has expiated his guilt over complicity in the torture and abuse of the Barbarian prisoners at the same time that he has begun to figure out what it means to be human. On a larger scale, as the vile agents of the empire are defeated by their own arrogant stupidity, the community has learned something about justice and how irrational fears of an "Other" are used to manipulate people into betraying their most basic values. The latter, of course, is a lesson North Americans desperately need to learn. But it is important to remember that this operatic drama works on multiple levels, all explored brilliantly through text and music, and thus cannot be simply reduced to a political statement. The action speaks for itself, so that the text and music bring out the humanity of the characters and the universality of their situation and the choices they make. There is thus a great deal to both ponder and enjoy in this opera. Even more than Satyagraha, Waiting for the Barbarians demonstrates how opera can be not only relevant in the 21st century but also a force for social change. Waiting for the Barbarians is opera "grown up"!
3.0 out of 5 stars
Where Will Music Go Next?,
This review is from: Philip Glass: Waiting for the Barbarians (Audio CD)
Before I lay into Philip Glass's "Waiting for the Barbarians", let me tell you where I'm coming from. I love his more "fusion" work, his pieces that aren't 100% minimalist. Where many prefer Einstein on the Beach, I love his Beauty and the Beast, his 5th Symphony and Satyagraha. Glass is always torn between the forces of heaven and hell, of angelic perfection and crude noise. Sometimes he leans more towards one or the other, be it in his orchestral harmonic works or his minimalist ones... But he is at his most interesting when he leans toward either extreme. His last opera, The Voyage, I found to be a muddle. WFTB is, by that standard a step in the right direction.
The bleakness and frequent claustrophobia of the piece suit the subject well (unlike the Voyage), and while not a work of beauty, WFTB is often haunting and provoking, but like much of Glass's recent catalog it sometimes makes you feel the composer himself does not know where he is headed. The problem with his minimalist roots is that they leave Mr Glass dangerously vulnerable to self-parody and repetition. Add to that a very substantial body of work (far exceeding the amount of music composers like Bartok or Stravinsky wrote in their lives), and inspirational exhaustion is bound to happen. If you love his past work, try this. As a first entry into the world of Philip Glass, it might prove a bit difficult, and his score to The Hours might work far better. Not a complete failure, but not the success we were hoping for.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Waiting for the Barbarians,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Philip Glass: Waiting for the Barbarians (Audio CD)
As a long-time fan of Philip Glass, I looked forward to this recording. I was very pleased with the performance, character and very moving story of the opera itself. The problem I had, at least with the copy I received, is that Track 10 on Disc I ("To demonstrate our strength....")is repeated as Track 10 on Disc II instead of the Track ("You don't have to go")that should be there. Has anyone else encountered this problem? I have an extensive collection of classical CD's and have never run into this problem previously.
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