March 2018. I was on an inter-city train racing through the countryside of southern Spain. Across the aisle was a mother and her teenage son: she was engrossed in an e-book while he was engrossed in study exercises. I needed to be engrossed in something.
I wanted to close my eyes and listen to music. The collection on my phone had become too familiar, so I decided to download something I had never heard before.
A few weeks earlier I had enjoyed a piece by American composer Philip Glass on BBC Radio Three’s overnight “Through the Night.” The time difference with the UK, means this show runs around dinner time in Minneapolis.
With the help of Google, I settled on Glass’s 1979 opera, “Satyagraha.” I downloaded it from my music subscription service and gave it a try. I was hooked by the end of the opening scene, and by the final aria I was hoping it would never end.
Because of this chance encounter with “Satyagraha” I’ll be going on another journey next week, this time to Los Angeles.
Satyagraha: Truth Force
May 1893. A young lawyer, Mahatma Gandhi, arrived in South Africa from India. He did not yet have the name “Mahatma” (“Great Soul”) but he would earn that title over the next 21 years in South Africa.
He arrived in a region that was stratified by race. Through unjust laws, white Europeans had set things up so they had most of the advantages. Blacks, the original southern Africans, were relegated to the bottom of society. Indians brought in from colonial India were slotted somewhere in the lower rungs of society.
During his 21 years in South Africa, Gandhi developed the strategy of Satyagraha (Sanskrit for “Truth Force”). Protests against unjust laws were peaceful; protesters willingly presented themselves for arrest. Gandhi was sentenced to four terms of imprisonment, including nine months of hard labor.
Gandhi distanced Satyagraha from passive resistance:
While in passive resistance there is a scope for the use of arms when a suitable occasion arrives, in Satyagraha physical force is forbidden even in the most favourable circumstances. Passive resistance is often looked upon as a preparation for the use of force while Satyagraha can never be utilized as such. Passive resistance may be offered side by side with the use of arms. Satyagraha and brute force, being each a negation of the other, can never go together.
Satyagraha in South Africa
Gandhi is rightly criticized for his disdain for black South Africans. However, the techniques he developed in South Africa led to the peaceful liberation of India from the British, and inspired Martin Luther King, Jr.
Satyagraha: the Opera
I defy anyone not to tear up at the final aria.
The elevated, slowly gesticulating figure at the rear of the stage depicts Martin Luther King, Jr.
This short video provides an overview of the opera as it was presented by New York City’s Metropolitan Opera in 2011.
Other resources that have helped me to understand the opera include:
- The Truth Source at the Met. The New York Review of Books.
- A letter to a Hindu. This helped me to understand why Tolstoy is a silent presence in Act I. Tolstoy’s “non-resistance to evil” helped bring Gandhi to Satyagraha.
- Echos of the Avant-Garde in American Minimalistic Opera. Despite the off-putting title, this doctoral thesis is actually very readable and provides an enormous amount of information about the creative process and the thinking behind the music and the libretto; I started at page 59.
- Satyagraha in South Africa. Gandhi’s own account of his time in South Africa.
My Insistence on Truth
There are different translations of “Satyagraha.” I choose “Insistence on Truth.”
Until January 2017, I had never taken part in a street protest. Since then, I’ve participated in several protests. I have a fractal view of the power of the individual: a tiny act can initiate a chain reaction of other tiny acts which can bring us closer to social justice.
Next week my partner and I will fly to Los Angeles to see the LA Opera’s production of Satyagraha. It will have clear messages for our time.
I am excited that a train journey in Spain can lead to a flight to Los Angeles, and that traveling beyond my immediate comfort zone helps me to see all of us as one human family.
2 comments