Saturday night’s concert: LA Philharmonic, Disney Hall, Philip Glass’s “CIVIL warS”, as discussed in an earlier post. Fabulous concert, with noticeable and intriguing differences in dynamic balance and tempo in the performance compared to the two recordings I have, and with bonuses: two intermediate passages of additional music, 3 or 4 minutes each, one between the prologue and Act One, as the chorus comes on stage; the other between Acts Two and Three, as two the soloists slowly leave.
(It’s the sort of supplemental music that I gather composers are often asked to provide, just in case; depending the staging. If you suspect Glass composed music by the yard, well, so did Tchaikovsky.)
I was not bothered by the staging issues the reviewer found foolish; I thought the staging worked well enough for a piece with operatic elements but which is not an opera, but an orchestral work with the full orchestra in view, (and a chorus on stairs behind), and various soloists coming and going on and off stage.
Here’s the final act:
