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It was mentioned in class that in Philip Glass’s quest to be considered a legitimate composer, he was perhaps hesitant to call his compositions ‘performance art,’ and thus labeled them as operas. Although I’m still not sure how I feel about the production I watched of Satyagraha, at times I felt the staging and costumes made the opera more of a spectacle, and detracted from the significance of the work, but I feel like there is a great opportunity with this opera to do something that’s never really been done before. On Friday we discussed the possibility of making opera more interactive, or an opera theme park, brilliant!

I do think that in the case of Satyagraha an interactive performance may push this opera even more towards performance art, probably much to the dismay of the composer, but I think it could add so much to the overall experience of this work. People had all sorts of ideas as to what sort of effects and staging should be used to tell this story and make it interactive with the audience. My personal favorite is audience seating that moves. I think it would be incredibly effective if the audience could move on platforms from left to right, and even up and down. Imagine how cool that last scene would be if the audience could rise up and pull backwards away from the action on stage during the last few minutes of the opera. Wind could blow on the audience and create the feeling of being outside, lighting and projections on the ceiling and walls of the house could create sunny or cloudy skies during the day and starry skies for night, and it would make the audience significantly more involved in opera. Someone even mentioned different smells being released into the room and pillows for the audience to sit on instead of chairs.

The possibilities are endless and I would love to see how far this idea could go, not just with Satyagraha, but with other operas as well. Imagine all of the dramatics of Tosca or Don Giovanni being done in a way in which the audience feels they are a part of the show, I think it would greatly increase the accessibility of opera today.