Satyagraha

A London production of Phillip Glass's 1980 opera, Satyagraha, is in rehearsal at the MET in New York, and it is making headlines for its unique use of simple materials (newspaper, woven baskets, corrugated iron etc.) in set design.

Check out the New York Time's video report:

While no opera is in our humble stage's near future (and I'm pretty sure Glass's music makes some of our company member's mind's melt in repetitive musical anguish but...) the ethic of the production: large scale beautiful epics produced from humble small scale materials via the utilization of modern technological opportunities is something we at 1st stage are eager to bring to the Tysons area.

The opera, Glass's second, is a chronicle of young Mohandas Gandhi's struggles in South Africa. Satyagraha, the word, is the philosophy of nonviolent resistance as practiced by the Mahatma. He described:"Its root meaning is holding onto truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it love-force or soul-force. In the application of satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself."

--patience and self-suffering-- great words to live by when you're waiting for local govt permit approval!