Design and visual concept Robert Wilson Music Philip Glass Lyrics Jalaluddin Rumi Translation Coleman Barks Sound design Kurt Munkacsi Music director Michael Riesman Directors Diana Walczak and Jeff Kleiser Vocalists Marie Mascari, Alexandra Montano, Gregory Purnhagen, Peter Stewart Performers Nan Friedman, Richard Korngute, Geoffrey Nimmer, Christine Saeng, Cooper Gerrard Philip Glass Ensemble (plus lots more technical credits) Well, this is version 1.2, Glass and Wilson have definitely sold the beta as the first release, an industry-standard practice. There's definitely a product here, but it's seriously buggy. The basic idea is great, combining images and music that immerse the audience totally within the space in the theatre rather than just within their heads. It's an extension of what Glass did in Koyaanasqatsi (which I'm told delivers total immersion if you're stoned, and which I found pretty mind-altering without chemical assistance at a late-night showing) and La Belle et la Bete, which added live music to existing film images. But a project like this needs to deliver an experience even more powerful than the dream-like state of the movies, and the technology doesn't do it yet. Part of the problem may be that we're used to three dimensional images with film-like clarity in games, and many people believe that virtual reality is already available. So special specs like in the 1950s and dull, wooly images that rarely emerge from the frame of the theatre's proscenium are a bit of a letdown. Another part of the problem, I suspect, was that the projection wasn't suitable for viewing from considerable areas of the Barbican theatre, or maybe wasn't properly set up full stop. Some of the moving images broke up badly (left and right images were maybe a second apart), particularly rotating ones. I thought that maybe it was my eyesight, but the person next to me experienced the same, and there were a lot of people trying to loosen knots in their necks afterwards. But, as I said, I think it's basically a great idea. The images have a simple intensity that suits Glass' music, and often provide a soothing contrast to the textural clashes of the instruments. The music is certainly not minimalist any more, and there are brief sections where it seems to be evoking the near Eastern musical traditions that belong with Jalaluddin Rumi's verse, both in modality and in rhythm. (Though I've often wondered whether Turkish and Persian traditional music can't be analysed as minimalist, in the way some genres build up complex structures from the smallest elements. Never let a saz player get started.) The total effect is intense but restful, moving through the erotic-religious lyrics as if through a ritual, with one simple, slowly moving image to contemplate for each lyric. The famous severed hand (one of the better projections) was quite effective as a focus for the music that didn't reduce to anything simple. It was actually attached to two arteries, which first appeared as an abstract looking pair of lines, following a completely abstract, Mondriaanish instrumental section. The lyric was along the lines of "I am sad when I walk down this street without you", and the pricking and cutting of the hand, plus the blood vessels leading to the heart, suggested a concatenation of ideas -- walking down the street holding hands, maybe, or losing a part of yourself but not being able to detach it completely. But nothing too closed. As others have pointed out, the live sections were generally more effective than the projections, though they looked a bit like happenings to me. Like the band, the singers were amplified as part of the total immersion effect. They got the words over well, though I sometimes found them difficult to follow because of the amplification. The text of all the lyrics in the programme would have helped -- they're not overloaded with meaning, and following them wouldn't distract from the emotional space created by the music and projections. I think I'll wait for release 5.0 (which will probably be available for domestic VR kit) to buy, but I certainly won't mind seeing another demo in a couple of years. Not sure that it's opera, of course.