Akhnaten

by Philip Glass

seen by live streaming from the Metropolitan Opera New York on 23 November 2019

Having written two glowing reviews of Phelim McDermott's production (and having seen it already three times at the Coliseum) I was not sure that I would write about its transfer to the Met, though I was more than happy to see it yet again. However, there is more to say about this endlessly stimulating work.

In New York, once again Karen Kamensek conducted, Anthony Roth Costanzo sang Akhnaten, and Zachary James took the narrative part, and the set and costume designers Tom Pye and Kevin Pollard were credited. Newcomers were J'Nai Bridges as Nefertiti, Dísella Lárusdottír as Queen Tye, Aaron Blake as the High Priest of Amon, Richard Bernstein as Aye, and Will Liverman as Horemheb.

The production was visually almost unchanged, except that (possibly to save the blushes of the extended audience, or maybe because American audiences may be more prurient than the British) Akhnaten emerged girt with a loincloth from his cocoon, rather than being naked, prior to his sumptuous coronation. The most substantial alteration was to rename the part taken by Zachary James from being merely a 'Scribe', to being the spirit of Amnhotep III, the father of Akhnaten whose burial rites occupy the first scene of the opera. This gave his already commanding physical stature more spiritual presence, and led to interesting if enigmatic interactions with his widow Queen Tye, but it may not have been a completely successful re-interpretation of the role. It is hardly to be supposed that the father would have approved of Akhnaten's career, and yet at the end the scene titles indicated that Amnhotep mourns for the death of his son; and the narrator's intermediate role as the reciter of letters announcing the collapse of Egypt's more distant provinces during the reign of the heretic Pharaoh was not sufficiently differentiated from his role as a ghostly presence.

As is often the case, the chance to see the protagonists in close up provided some intriguing shifts in my general perception of the opera. I had wondered in advance about this, as in Phelim McDemoot's realisation of Philip Glass's music, the overall spectacle on stage is extremely important, and the camera director's choice of shots could have destroyed the impact of his carefully considered choreography. However, it was on the whole sensitively done, and it was fascinating to see in particular the vulnerabitiy expressed in Anthony Roth Costanzo's wonderful interpretation of the role. The details in the costumes, and the fantastical make-up, also benefited from a closer look.

I have no regrets at seeing Akhnaten again in the live-streaming format.