Kepler, Philip Glass

I'm always ambivalent about attending a live performance of any Glass music--and because Mike is a devotee, I get lots of opportunities to feel ambivalent. Granted, Glass can be luscious and deeply mesmerizing; his music can also become monotonous and sleep enducing.

Allan Kozinn's NYTimes review (see link above) helped place me in the right mindset for the Bruckner Orchestra Linz's performance of Kepler. Billed as an opera, the work is much closer to an oratorio. Rather than filling the stage with a dramatic narrative of love or war, the performance filled the stage with dramatic music and the drama of intellectual quest. (I suspect that a study of the score would reveal elliptical patterning.)

Besides baritone Martin Achrainer as Kepler, the only other singers are a six-member ensemble, who assume various roles, from planets to Kepler's enemies.

Recommend.