Carnegie Hall

Satyagraha is the second opera of Philip Glass’s so-called “Portrait Trilogy” based on the lives of historical figures, beginning with Einstein on the Beach and concluding with Akhnaten. Dating from 1979, Satyagraha is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and his ideology of achieving change through peaceful protest and civil disobedience. With a libretto assembled using text from the Bhagavad Gita and sung in the original Sanskrit, the opera layers various historical vignettes, political statements, philosophical musings, and parables to form a meditative work that is as much manifesto as music or theater.