AUDIENCE LEFT BUZZING AT GLASS SPEED AND ACCURACY Philip Glass, along with Wagner, is among music's greatest polarisers. Here in South Australia, we have ample opportunity to make up our own minds - to love, to hate, or even both at once. Conductor Timothy Sexton is a passionate and persuasive advocate of the world's best known minimalist. With choreographer Leigh Warren and designer Mary Moore, he staged Akhnaten, seen first in the Opera Studio in 2002 and subsequently in Melbourne and picking up a swag of awards in both cities. An essentially modest but dramatically effective production, it was accompanied, not by the original's 60 instruments (no violins, triple wind and brass) but by Sexton's own reduction for four keyboards and three percussion, now reported to be in frequent use by Glass and his publishers. Two years later came Einstein on the Beach Parts 3 & 4, also generally and critically acclaimed. Now formally announced are productions of the first two parts of Einstein in 2006 and the tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, Satyagraha, in 2007. Hopes are still high for presenting the whole trilogy within the space of one week, according to the composer's plans and hoping to match the achievement so far unique to Salzburg's 1983 marathon. No news so far of plans to bring to Adelaide Glass' 21st (!) opera, Waiting for the Barbarians, based on the novel by Adelaide's own Nobel literature prize winner J.M. Coetzee. What a coup that would be. The reclusive author might even be persuaded to attend. In the meantime, Sexton has been keeping the Glass pot simmering. In early September, along with 12 intrepid singers from the Adelaide Vocal Project and about 30 players from the Adelaide Art Orchestra, he staged a concert the like of which would grace a city many times the size of Adelaide. The lofty (literally) and quasi-sacred portals of the Great Hall in the Grand Lodge of Freemasons predetermined that this was to be a very serious occasion. But entertaining? A whole program of minimalism? In the event, plenty to admire, to enjoy and to learn. As with Schoenberg's dodecaphonics, technique is no substitute for music. Sexton's concert began with Dona Nobis Pacem by Latvian Peteris Vasks, recently in residence at the Elder Conservatorium. Insistent repetitions worked up to a climax of demands, followed by a silence for meditation before the humble final pleas. The total focus was on the simple, ancient text. It cannot be said too many times. The six movements of Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna pushed through the bonds of technique to the music on the other side. Especially fine were the unaccompanied O Nata Lux and a jolly, one-in-a-bar waltz time Veni Sancte Spiritus. And whyever not? Taxing as Vasks and Lauridsen were, they were mere warm-ups for the second half. For excerpts from Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha and Akhnaten conductor, singers and players were on constant red alert for just over an hour. Many of the Adelaide Vocal Project members had done their apprenticeships in the operas, but here they were, centre stage, in full spotlight view, with no place to hide or to rest. Their vocal and facial muscles, exterior and interior, were as rivetting to watch as the sound was to hear. Also working overtime were Sexton's back and shoulder muscles and joints, his wired-up brain switching as if pre-programmed between time signatures, his apparently tireless baton sending waves of energy to singers and players. The speed and accuracy was downright dazzling, the after-concert gossip from the large audience buzzing with superlatives. One Glass fan had decided it was worth making a special trip from Sydney, and it was. ELIZABETH SILSBURY |
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