The Opera Incognita always chooses unusual locations for its performances. This time the ensemble goes to the Egyptian Museum to present Phil Glass’s opera about King Akhenaten to its audience.
Philip Glass’ opera “Akhnaten” is always sold out at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The minimal music of the great contemporary composer is accessible and of almost ritual magic, the singers show vocal acrobatics, but the stage design is probably the biggest star. Monumental like the tombs of the pharaohs and set in a light that rivals the most beautiful sunset.
Could such a thing ever be surpassed? Hardly likely. But you can make it at least as interesting. With a clever move: the comparatively minimalistic small, free opera collective “Opera Incognita” around Andreas Wiedermann (director) and Ernst Bartmann (musical direction) moves straight to the Egyptian Museum in Munich for their interpretation of Glass’s Akhnaton opera. This is in the tradition of the resourceful ensemble, which always chooses unusual locations for its performances. In Müller’sches Volksbad it played “Idomeneo”, and also in the Egyptian Museum “Aida”.
“Akhnaten” premiered in 1984 at the Staatstheater Stuttgart. After “Einstein on the Beach” and “Satyagraha”, the opera is the conclusion of a large “portrait trilogy” by Glass about Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi and Akhenaten. In it, the pioneer of minimal music tells of the life of Akhenaten in associative images. In the middle of the 14th century BC he tried to introduce a religious state monotheism with the “Aton” cult. The pharaoh and his wife, the legendary beautiful Nefertiti, failed tragically. The texts of the libretto come from pyramid writings, the Amarna letters, the legendary Book of the Dead and the hymn to the sun written by Akhenaten – who is also considered a great reformer of the arts in his country.
In the prelude, Wiedermann first gives a historical classification of the events in relation to today, only then does he lead the viewer back to Akhenaten’s childhood. The background: In 2022 archeology will celebrate important anniversaries. On the one hand, it is the 200th anniversary of Heinrich Schliemann’s birth, and on the other hand, in 1822, the then 31-year-old linguist Champollion deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs. “Both events have burned themselves deeply into the collective memory of a historically interested world public and are still considered milestones of creative discovery and the performance of the human spirit,” says Wiedermann. The Opera Incognita wants to honor this with the Munich premiere of “Akhnaten”.
Akhnaten by Philip Glass, chamber version by Timothy Sexton, premieres Sat 27 Aug , further premieres: 31 Aug and 2, 3, 7, 9, 10 and 16 September. Starts at 7.30 p.m., State Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich