Political Protest, Philip Glass Operas, And ‘The Battle Hymn Of The Republic’

Alison Kinney: “I heard my first Glass opera, Satyagraha, days after a protest where I witnessed the use of unnecessary force by police against protesters … Since then, I’ve never heard the structures of Glass’s music simply as formal sound projections, onto a backdrop of historical source material. Now, I hear in the musical forms the forms of nonviolent resistance itself: holding steady, taking small steps forward, being beaten back, and getting up again.”