Indeed, the brass and timpani sections remind me of the powerful Stravinsky ballets that Levine conducted in his matinee performances – especially the Rite of Spring. This fabulous orchestra has retained precisely the articulate brilliance it did under James Levine. There is no denying, however, that the Met brass and timpani have a field day at the funeral of Amenhotep III in Act I. But, Kamensek has vastly slowed down the music as well which is perhaps why this is the case, even if it also places formidable demands on her cast. Karen Kamensek, at ENO, just as she did at the Met, uncovered details in the score which the earliest recording, made over 40-years ago, glossed over. You may not be able to see those images in the recording but in part they have been negotiated and managed through the orchestra.
The 2019 English National Opera revival of Phelim McDermot’s 2016 production of this Akhnaten, which remains the reference point I have for this Metropolitan Opera premiere, was stunning, a true Egyptian display of rich colours and burning sun.
Of all of Glass’s three ‘Portrait Operas’, Akhnaten is the one that is the most visual, the one that is the most obviously brilliant when staged – and problematic when taken from live performance for a sound-only recording. Much of this can come across on a recording of the opera indeed, with well-placed microphones and superb digital sound the score is brought alive on CD in a way that a filmed performance can’t match. Linguistically, it is sung in English, Akkadian and Hebrew – and at least twice has incorporated German (in Akhnaten’s ‘Hymn to the Sun’). The work is a pinnacle of many forms: focal accuracy, concentration, dexterity and clarity that has to be as visually precise as a high-definition photograph. The orchestra is unusual in that there are no violins – something which Glass never particularly intended but which was necessitated by problems at the initial premiere which required him to rewrite the score to accommodate a smaller string section (in the end he just excised the violins entirely). Glass chooses a countertenor for the role of Akhnaten – and great countertenors are in short supply. It is a highly emblematic minimalist work, and yet this occludes its enormous technical difficulty, both for its singers and orchestral players.
Until 2019 Akhnaten had never been performed at the Metropolitan Opera – from which this second recording, just released by Orange Mountain, comes – but it was in London, three years earlier, that this production was first seen and heard.Īkhnaten itself is a deceptive opera. Bernard Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights fared better than this, although it is, in my view, an inferior opera. Indeed, until recently only a single recording of each of Satyagraha and Akhnaten was available – and in the case of Einstein on the Beach the opera has not had a recording since 1993. Philip Glass’s major operas are hardly well represented on CD.
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