U n b e n d i n g i n t e n t:
a n i n t e r v i e w w i t h P h i l i p G l a s s
Philip Glass talks with Tricycle about Gandhi, art, Buddhism, Christianity, social justice and compassion.
Philip Glass during the Monumenta 2008, at the Grand Palais, Paris. In the background, Promenade, sculpture/installation by Richard Serra.
Photo: François Bouchet
Philip Glass’s opera Satyagraha, written in 1979, depicts the early years of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa. Born in India in 1869, Gandhi studied law in England before accepting a job to mediate a dispute between two Indian businessmen in South Africa. Here he remained for the next twenty years (1893–1914), developing his strategies of nonviolent transformation, which he called satyagraha. The entire text for Glass’s Satyagraha comes from the Bhagavad Gita, which is a part of the great Indian epic The Mahabharata.
In the Gita, the warrior Arjuna and his charioteer, who is the embodiment of Lord Krishna, charge onto a battlefield where opposing armies stand ready to fight. Suddenly Arjuna is beset by doubt and misgivings, and in response, Krishna delivers some of the greatest spiritual teachings in world history.
Glass’s Satyagraha, first performed in the United States at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1981, was the second in a trilogy preceded by Einstein on the Beach and followed by Akhnaten. His opera Appomattox, about the Civil War, premiered at the San Francisco Opera House. In April 2008 a new production of Satyagraha was performed in New York City at the Metropolitan Opera House.
This interview was conducted in Nova Scotia by Tricycle’s founder, Helen Tworkov. Philip Glass is Chair of the Tricycle Foundation’s Board of Directors.
Click here to read the interview at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra
Photo: François Bouchet