If you happen to had advised me 10 years in the past that English Nationwide Opera’s largest hit can be a 20th-century opera sung in Egyptian, Hebrew and Akkadian, with little apparent plot and no subtitles – oh, and juggling – I’d have scoffed. And I’d have been improper. Three London runs and three units of sell-out homes later, plus acclaimed outings in New York and LA, and Philip Glass’s Akhnaten is the unlikeliest triumph in opera: a logic-defying piece of theatrical magic.
And magic it truly is. You possibly can see what Akhnaten does, really feel its impact in your pulse (alternately slows and races), your focus (absolute), the best way time passes (in unusual surges and ebbs), but it surely’s virtually unattainable to work out how the manufacturing pulls it off.
You are reading: Akhnaten, London Coliseum, review: Astonishing staging of Philip Glass opera proves why we need ENO
There have been clearer stagings of this quasi-biographical piece concerning the rise and fall of historic Egyptian Pharoah Akhnaten, whose try to introduce monotheism noticed his identify and legacy all however expunged from historical past, however none that do what director Phelim McDermott does so unexpectedly in his alchemical fusion of sound, picture and motion.
There aren’t any violins in Glass’s orchestra, dimming the sonic brightness. The muted shades of the composer’s densely patterned scales and arpeggios are the backdrop towards which designers Tom Pye and Kevin Pollard silhouette relentlessly attractive, colour-flooded photos – a residing frieze of Egyptian gods; an enormous solar flushed purple silhouetting a tiny human determine – which choreographer Sean Gandini fills with hypnotic rituals of motion.
Simply as Glass’s rating reduces music to its important models – a single chord; a single rhythm – so the designs take huge concepts again to their essence: an orb; scales; a wheel. It’s the identical story with motion. The Gandini jugglers aren’t there for adornment, their synchronised patterns scale back gesture to its components. Battle turns into a single spear-throw arc, celebration a fountain of upward throws, every repeated many times. No applause greets even their most astonishing feats on opening evening – a certain signal that we’ve gone past circus-skills and arrived at artwork.
It is a marathon of a rating, and each ENO’s orchestra and refrain underneath conductor Karen Kamensek present their mettle. The soloists (together with returning star-turn Anthony Roth Costanzo within the title position) are all exemplary. Chrystal E Williams sings a luscious Nefertiti, united with Akhnaten in a staggeringly sensual love-duet.
If ever there was a present that makes the case for ENO, for why London wants two opera corporations, then that is it. The Royal Opera may by no means conceive this Akhnaten – its tight net of disciplines and complex meeting requires rehearsal time their worldwide stars would by no means commit – nor would they ever select to stage this repertoire within the first place. And looking out round on the vigorous younger crowd, feeling the power within the intervals and listening to the reactions, we’d be a lot the poorer with out it.
