Akhnaten

Metropolitan Opera / Showcase Cinema

Do you remember that episode of Frasier in which Patrick Stewart played a fashionable opera-producer. "Such a wonderful producer" remarks Niles "Once, he even stage a Philip Glass opera and no-body walked out!"

I must admit that I was expecting Akhnaten to be challenging -- difficult even. It is certainly true that there are no melodies -- nothing to whistle on your way home -- but enough is going on aurally that the piece is, if not completely comprehensible then certainly eminently listenable-to, even for those of us not fully conversant in all the ins and outs of minimalist music.   The two big set pieces in the second act -- the declaration of love been Pharaoh Akhnaten and Queen Nefertiti;  and Ahknaten's long hymn to the Sun are as beautiful as anything you would hear in a conventional opera. 

This is definitely not a conventional opera. There isn't anything that you could call a narrative or any characterization. ("Quite abstract" said the host who pops up in the intervals and tells the singers how wonderful they have been.) It's like the performance or evocation or re-enactment of a religious ritual. Everyone walks around the stage incredibly slowly. We are warned in the programme notes that it contains nudity, but I must have blinked and missed it. (I did not demand my money back.) 

Akhnaten was a real historical dude; a short lived Pharaoh who invented monotheism four hundred years too early. Freud, after he had entered his barmy stage, thought that he had survived his assassination, changed his name to Moses, and led his followers into the wilderness. (The hymn to the sun which is genuinely written by Akhnaten, does read about like an Old Testament Psalm.) Disappointingly, most scholars now doubt that Akhnaten ever believed that the Aten was a monotheistic creator; it was more likely that he simply thought that out of all the pantheon, only the Sun was worth worshiping. (In the early sections of the Old Testament, Jehovah is the best god and the top god, but not necessarily the only God.) 

The music may be minimalist but this is distinctly maximalist production; a lush pageant with costumes that the cast can barely walk in. Aye, father of Nefertiti, has a top hat with a skull on it. Akhnaten himself spends the first and third acts in an amazing technicolor dream coat made of gold, jewels and the faces of dolls. The first act ends with him standing in front of a bright red solar disc; the second act is dominated by a huge white ball representing the sun itself and the city of the sun which he has built. Queen Tye, carries a literal and realistic heart across the stage and places it in a literal balance to see if it literally weighs more than a feather (This determines if Amenhotep , Akhnaten's father, can enter the afterlife.) 

And everywhere, in all the scenes, are jugglers, vast troops of jugglers; dressed as mummies or mud elementals. Hardly a ball gets dropped in the whole evening. The movement of the balls is meant as a visual analogue to Glass's music. (The cast were banned in rehearsals for making any more "ball" jokes.)  Only once does this idea become absurd; when the king is worshiping the gigantic sun-ball, everyone else juggling smaller sun balls, giving the overwhelming but unintentional impression that we are at a beach party. 

Amenhotep dies. Amenhoptep is buried. Amenhotep has his soul weighed. Akhnaten becomes king. Akhnaten declares that Aten is the only god. Akhnaten builds a new city, marries Nefertiti and worships the sun. The priests are cross; they start a counter revolution and kill him; but Akhnaten and Nefertiti still haunt the ruins of their city. The text is in multiple ancient languages; but there is a narration in English. The production eschews sub-titles (except in the hymn); but on=screen captions make it very clear what is going on. 

At this very moment, someone is conceiving of a production of Akhnaten which dispense with the Egyptian imagery in favour of universal human themes, which it conveys by dressing all the priests as a characters from Waiting for Godot. I think a simpler production could have been completely impenetrable and incredibly boring; but making the music one component of this vast decadent pageant puts us into the realm of pure opera.

No-one walked out.