Customer Reviews

Robert Ashley: Improvement

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The album notes and sparse opening remarks narrated by Ashley's liquid voice indicate that this work is a musical allegory for the Sephardim Jewry in Spain. The opera centers around Linda (representing the Jews), abandoned at a desert roadside rest stop by her husband Don (Spain in 1492), so that he can run off with Eleanor (America/the New World). Various characters inhabit Linda's life as she copes with Don's departure (is this why the title of the opera is IMPROVEMENT?), all of whom represent significant influences/impacts on the Sephardim. You don't have to be a history buff to enjoy this opera; the melodic and lyrical flow is richly textured, quite often in a strange chanting monotone (reminding one of Latin chants in Mass). Ashley's background as a linguist comes to the fore in his music; the rhythms and patterns of speech and vocals are varied, beautiful, sometimes humorous, and often quite haunting. You'll have many memorable passages inhabiting your consciousness for hours after you stop listening to IMPROVEMENT. If you are a fan of modern "post-industrial" music, complex symbolism, or the beauty of the spoken word, you will become intoxicated by this album.

Just when I thought there was nothing that could continue the excitement people like Philip Glass and Robert Wilson brought to contemporary opera, along came Robert Ashley's IMPROVEMENT. This is my favorite work by Ashley and I think it is one of his 'masterpieces' to date. It follows kind of like a David Lynch film; you may not 'get it' from moment to moment, but as the opera progresses you begin to understand an overall framework and sense a progression (the piece is modeled after the Tibetan Book of the Dead, according to Ashley).

The story of the opera is interesting and the music participates in creating a context for the drama (unlike, I think, some of Ashley's other pieces). Try it. You'll like it...

If you like Ashley, this is one of his best. A full length TV Opera, incredibly strange, IMPROVEMENT pushes the limits of what is considered "opera." Ashley messes with how we perceive language, content vs inflection- this is both spoken/chanted and sung. Poignant, it's packed with meaning and with tons of liner notes to guide you, including the complete text of the opera. The Airline Ticket Counter is a highlight.

Ashley uses the rhythms of speech, and little else, to create a fascinating kind of music. The first lines capture your attention, and from there one hardly notices the hour and a half passing before the opera finishes and finally releases you from the captivity of rapt attention you didn't realize you had succmbed to.