Philip Glass’ New Opera: ‘Appomattox’
“ “I’ve got a lot of colors in my box that I didn’t have when I was a so-called minimalist…I got them the old-fashioned way – I went out and learned how to do it.”"
Ever since learning to appreciate “Einstein on the Beach” in college, I’ve held a special affection for Philip Glass. Especially with comments like his reaction to the practice of having dancers go offstage, turn around, and come back on. “After the third or fourth time,” he said in an interview (and I’m paraphrasing), “you just want to shoot them…”
This opera sounds a bit more accessible than Einstein on the Beach; it also is nice to see him coming back to the live theatre, as opposed to sticking to what I imagine must be the more lucrative movie scores. Not that I don’t love his scores, too – I just think the live stage needs this more.
“ “My memory of the war is the women, the sorrow of women, the anxiety of women,” says the celebrated composer, whose new opera, “Appomattox,” delves into the final days of the bloody Civil War and the nature of the two opposing generals who crafted the surrender that ended the slaughter. Glass bookends the piece with a prologue and epilogue sung solely by women, among them the wives of Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln, and former slave Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln’s psychic seamstress.”
Now, if only they’d do a site for it like Carmen….
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