The opera is sung in Sanskrit, the 3500-year-old tongue of ancient India, the primary language in which most Hindu philosophical and religious works were written. Some of these tableaux of bigotry-which aren’t depicted chronologically in Satyagraha-are highly stylized and reminiscent of mass action mise-en-scène in early Soviet silent films. When the young Indian attorney, who was born October 2, 1869, in Porbandar, India, arrived in British-ruled South Africa in the 1890s, he encountered stunning prejudice and became a civil rights leader.
Glass’s activist opera-which premiered while apartheid was still in effect and Nelson Mandela was cooling his heels behind bars at Robben Island-is actually set in South Africa, not India, where Gandhi eventually helped lead the independence movement against Great Britain. The title role is performed by tenor Sean Panikkar, Pennsylvania-born son of immigrants from Sri Lanka. Gandhi’s struggle for social justice is a tour de force. Through mesmerizing music, magisterial stagemanship, surreal scenery, radical politics and more, this three-act, three-hour-plus operatic extravaganza about Mohandas K. But Glass’s revolutionary Satyagraha gives the lie to that clichéd canard. There’s a tendency to look down on opera as a centuries-old art form that’s an outdated medium for old maids, stuffed shirts and all-around fuddy-duddies. But being a hack finally paid off in 1980: The Glass ceiling was shattered when Satyagraha burst upon the Schouwburg’s stage in Rotterdam, Holland. LOS ANGELES-To support his musical habit and pay the bills, for 20 years among other day jobs composer Philip Glass was a cab driver in New York City. Naidoo, J'Nai Bridges as Kasturbai, Morris Robinson as Parsi Rustomji, So Young Park as Miss Schlesen and Theo Hoffman as Mr. Sean Panikkar (center) as Gandhi, with (left to right) Erica Petrocelli as Mrs.
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