Subject: On Saturday, at Rutgers U, April 26, 2008, IRAN TODAY or The Persians - at least how the 60s paved a process that brought us where we are today - but all this without mentioning for the day the word “oil.” Next Weekend, April 30 - May 3, 2008, Mahmood Karimi-Hakak Brings Aeschylus’ The Persians to Siena College, Albany, NY.

That was indeed an extraordinary event. I decided to drive to the Bush Campus Of Rutgers University, on the grounds of what was Camp Kilmer in the WWII days, Piscataway, New Jersey, because I knew that Trita Parsi was going to speak there. As we already reported about him, he seems to have very good insights on the US - Israel - Larger-Middle-East triangle - even though that we already observed that even he avoids mentioning the word oil - and in our view of the world this is a sign of incomplete truth. Otherwise the insights are nevertheless very helpful - because oil is a topic for the elite-few, while mass psychology - based on the relation to national mythology or, even true historic facts - is what moves the big masses of people that end up moving history.

I mentioned WWII because I found it very appropriate Camp Kilmer as a locale for this meeting. As I explained many times in the past, modern history of the Middle East is an outcome of settlements that resulted from the two named world wars of the 20th century. WWI created Iraq, and set Inter-State borders for the Middle East; WWII partitioned the world at Yalta so that Britain will have in its zone of influence Iraq and Iran, while the Soviet Union exited Iran and got in exchange Eastern and Central Europe. This had to do with oil - but then, as now - the real topic was not out in the open. It was only over 50 years later that the Freedom of Information Act started to trickle out facts - and now as then - State rulers prefer to divert our attention from rigorous economic interests, to the softer sciences. Anyway - it is nevertheless important to have at least the understanding of these soft sciences right.

I thought I was the only one that will be thinking so at the “Iran Today” meeting, but after I had asked a question about oil - the only time during the day that this word was brought up, one of the Iranian business people that came to listen in - told be without my having prodded so - “at these meetings oil is never mentioned, there must be a reason why they do not mention it.”

THE PROGRAM FOR THE DAY:

THE COVER OF THE PROGRAM FOR THE CONCERT by the Chakavak Ensemble of Traditional Persian Music:

The First Panel Dealt with Iranian Identity:

Professor Ahmad Ashraf Explained the place of the story-tellers in shaping the culture from pre-Sasanian times. Even the political integration setback during the Mungal period actually helped forge the Iranian identity that via a hybrid Iranian-Shia identity moved to the forming of an Iranian Nation concept. It still did not make for an Iranian Nation State in the 19th century - it only provided the basis for such a state. It was the reviewing of the architectural archeological factual historical evidence that in 1971 led to the celebration of 2500 years to the establishing of the Cyrus empire - that was when from the mythos - the Shah then declared the modern nation.

Dr. Hashani-Sabet, reviewing identity and borderlands - said that modern nationalism still did not get cover for all Iran’s areas - at best there is a romantic nationalism. Real Nationalism, something not too prevalent in the Moslem Middle East puts according to a poll taken in 2001 - 14% of the people in Jordan that say the “Nation” is the most important factor that makes them Jordanians. For Egypt the comparable question yielded 10% and for Iran just 4%.

Nevertheless - the identification as Iranians (even though modern Nationalism did not catch their eye) it was 58% that said they are Iranians. She spoke of academic reconstruction and deconstruction of the Iranian image and the politics involved. There is a clear frontier policy now.

The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, effectively controlled the politics of Iran between 1918 and 1923 but Winston Churchill, the New Secretary of State for The Colonies created in 1921 a State called Iraq that resulted in an unclear border for Iran. (Just Think what others already called as - “Churchill’s Folly.”) For many years Iran did not even recognize Iraq. People that considered themselves Iranians were placed by the British in Iraq. In a Saudi article about Karbala - they did not accept these “Iranians” as real Arabs.

Problems of unsettled borders were also on the Baluchistan frontier with Pakistan. Though arid land, the problem one got into the open after the Pakistanis detonated heir nuclear bomb. The Shifting river border with Iraq requested several times the involvement of Turkey as an arbitrator - but then the Kurds did not get any place n such negotiations.

The third presentation - Dr. Shouleh Vatanabadi - dealt with Iranians outside Iran. That was the progression from 3,000 years ago to Today. 9/11 brought many issues to the forefront - among these the place of the women in Iranian-American society. There is the multiplicity of identities in full bloom - right here. She made points about abstraction of identities: of Iran in the US, but also of the US in Iran. She found ideas so different that they were astonishing. The American colonizer in Iran and some nostalgia to life in Israel. She finds that in the US they are not ready to accept that there are different abstractions in Iran - one expects in a book about Iran only reality - but why not see that - more a French book deals with abstractions - so it becomes more valuable. I got from this that we are wrong in taking Iranians by the word of what they say.

The Second Panel Expanded Further Into Cultural Issues:

Majid Muhammadi described the Iranian politics on cinema matters. He defined three economic means for a politically driven and controlled cinema - both for the production of Iranian movies and for the allowing in and the the showing of foreign movies: Hedayati, Hemayati, and Nezarati. Thus each year there is a political target se for the movie making industry. This policy is then driving the funding of the making of movies and the funding of showing the movies. Film directing is a privilege given by the system to political insiders.

In term of numbers - cinema houses are closing - in a country of 70 million people there are now 300 cinemas (compare this to 14,000 in the US). There are 500 movie directors but only 45-65 movies are made per year. Out of these there are 3-5 that are high box office movies. In 2007 20 million tickets were sold.

Peter Chelkowski showed us political Wall-Art. That is Wall Graphiti and political posters. Some of the samples were astonishing - some blunt and some more abstract. I will see to it to post some of them at a later date.

Mahmood Karimi-Hakak who studied at NYU Drama Department 1977-1979, with Richard Schechner - the guru of the Off-Off- Broadway those days - went back to Iran 192-19999 and directed a Mid-Summer Night’s Dream Production. Hell broke lose - it was forbidden - and eventually he left the country. He is an optimist. The society is young and most young are intelligent and breeze for fresh air. They succeeded despite difficulties. He says that Shakespeare is as relevant even when censors cut the production. Now, the closing of the show became the subject of a documentary movie.

Now, back in the US, Mahmood is directing “The Persians” for Sienna College in Albany - with shows from April 30 till May 3, 2008.

Please see some pages I scanned:

THE THIRD PANEL WAS ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE IRANIAN SOCIETY TODAY - This WAS A LEGAL PANEL:

Mehrangiz Kar pointed out that in 1963 women got the right to vote { OK that was ahead of Switzerland!}. They can even be elected but will not hold important positions. The problem is more serious in inequality in daily life in ares such as inheritance or compensation for damages - simply a woman seems to be only half a human being. A campaign for women’s rights gathered one million signatures! The woman that organized this got the Olof Palme award.

Farhad Khosrokhavar followed with Young people.

The Fourth and the Last Panel was on International Relations - the original reason for my coming for the day. The first speaker was Trita Parsi, the President of the National Iranian Council in the US:

He grew up in Sweden where he got his M.Sc. in International Affairs at The University of Stockholm - then his PH.D. at SAIS, Johns Hopkins U. in Washington DC. He worked for the Security Council of the Swedish Government and got to washington August 2001 - right in time for 9/11. That sealed his activities since - as he decided to concentrate on next conflict in the Middle East - on Iran. This came about as he realized that last book was written about Iranian-US relations in 1987. Actually it was by Israeli Journalist Tom Segev who, though very good, had at the time access only to Israeli documents.

The main push to do a new book came from the realization that in 1987, when Khomeini was still alive, Yitzhak Rabin CALLED IRAN - ISRAEL’s BEST FRIEND. That clearly was so in the 60s and 70s when both countries faced threats from the same enemies Pan-Arabism of Nasser and the Soviet Union push into the Middle East.  Israel wanted the relations with the Shah out in the open - but Iran preferred to keep it all secret in order to avoid needless reactions from the Arabs. There was an Israeli mission in Tehran but no lags and no visibility whatsoever. Parsi challenges the idea that in 1979 there was a root-change.  He thinks that despite the new government in power in Iran - basic relations stayed on. Paradoxically, because of the hostage crisis, the Iranians became even more dependent on Israel for access to US Congress - and for spare parts to US previously supplied equipment. It all boiled down to Vietnam and Israel when it came to replacement parts to American arms.

Trita Parsi points out the Israeli of National Security as being a No-Arab Periphery Doctrine involving Turkey, Ethiopia and Iran. Only three days after Saddam’s invasion of Iraq, the Israeli Minister of Defense held a conference about the need to keep up the Iranian defense.

THE MOST EXCESSIVE RHETORIC AGAINST ISRAEL COVERS OVER THE SUBVERT IRAN-ISRAEL RELATIONS.  israel lobbied in Washington to continue helping Iran.  What changed was the collapse of the Soviet Union so in 1991-93 and then Israel was ready to have a new look at Iraq. now there was an Iran-Iraq balance in Israel relations.  From the Iranian perspective they also allowed a change and promoted their own utility to the Us by allowing shipments of oil while Father Bush dealt blows to Saddam. On the other hand, Israel felt that without the SU it is losing its own utility to the US. Now the alliance of the US with other Arab states in the war against Saddam required putting Israel outside the circle - with an added promise that after the war they will turn their attention again to the Palestinian issue.

Iraq thought they can push Israel to disrupt this new found Arab-US entente by enticing Israel to react to the shelling. Israel did not allow Saddam to dictate its policy, but what will happen if the US and Iran find a way out to their conflict? The Periphery Doctrine will then fall and Israel must decide on a new policy. Will Israel be interested to support Hamas in order to undermine the PLO? The first are Sunni fundamentalists while the Latter are Sunni Nationalists. The US can only relate to the Nationalists -= not the Fundamentalists. If the peace process succeeds - then Iran is isolated! So - Now Iran will Support Hamas in order to avoid an outcome that marginalizes them also.

So - again - a collusion of Israel-Iran interests. When does one take posturing serious and when does posturing translate into action?

THERE IS NO COMPROMISE IN IDEOLOGICAL BATTLES BUT THERE IS AMPLE WINDOW SPACE FOR COMPROMISE IN STRATEGIC BATTLES.

The Arabs support the US to stabilize Iraq - then go to Damascus and declare readiness to negotiate with Israel but the Bush Administration does not react very much to the Damascus Declaration. of May 17, 2003. The problem is that Chamberlain is remembered and nobody wants to become the new Chamberlain of the Middle East.

{A question from the floor asked and who are the Molotow-Ribentropps of the Middle East.}  Parsi’s answer was that this is an excellent question - the best that was ever put to him. I DO NOT THINK THAT WASHINGTON HAS THE INTELLECTUAL CAPABILITY TO TALK TO IRAN - he said. it will completely require a change in the climate for the ME. It is not all bad when human rights is on the table - he continued. If the Marshall plan would have been about containing Germany it would not have been the success it became. Diplomacy has to be the first option, but we did not spend the time to figure out what it means to bring in Iran.

In the last couple of years we have seen Iran drifting reluctantly in the direction of Russia, China….  In 1995, the first Reagan Administration started to isolate Iran and Pushing it to China and Russia. US allies become discouraged also of the way the US handles the situation and may even pull the rug from under the US diplomacy.

Hamid Zangeneh, who published a book titled: “Islam, Iran, and World Stability,” was the last speaker. His topic was Iran-Us but much was already taken from him by Parsi.

He stated flat - “The overthrow of Mossadegh has denied Iran 30 years. Americans don’t understand this - WE DO!”

ALL OF IRAN REMEMBERS “THE COUP - “The American’s Ask What Is Iran Good For”"

There was an affection in Iran to Kennedy. Nixon years were good for the Shah! It was the Americans that made hen the Shah to Buy the nuclear system. We could do the dual containment of Iran-Iraq - specially now that the UN Security Council gave the Us the go on Iran.  Saudi Arabia is in the Foundation of all three countries but they never fought in any of these regional wars. The Israeli have! India, China, Europe, Japan, the US will have to sit down.

So what does Iran Want? Actually they do not want to make the bomb - all what they want is to be like Germany - to have the know-how - the capability to make a bomb without making one.

if America has to leave Iraq in disgrace - the military will move all over and there will be a loss for Iran and Israel - that is why Israel sees in the loss of Iraq a disaster. israel does not want to see the US cozy up with the Arab countries. SO NEXT PRESIDENT SHOULD GO TO CHINA AND GET THEIR HELP IN ORDER TO FIND A SOLUTION.

OK - You see - We Talked about the whole world and managed not to say the word oil once - that is except my own question that was addressed to Panel No.2 and was about the oil money - easy come to the governments - easy go - so that was the basis for the corruption in the Iranian-Arab region. The answer came that the corruption is a cultural thing and that countries like Zimbabwe are corrupt without having oil. So, let me confess that I saw the point - and the point was that when people - for whatever reasons - do not want to see the subject of oil - they will simply display total blindness to that subject - THEY WILL NOT SLIP ON OIL! And my newly found Iranian friend, I mentioned earlier, simply made the same comment.

Could we say that oil people are interested in shaking out the topic in an intellectual exercise? Even so, the shake-out on Saturday was done very well and I feel like I had a clearing of sinuses when trying to decipher further the intricacies of the Middle East.

And one last point - history has provided Iran with much to grieve about - something that it did not hand to the Arabs - so - despite the incomplete conversation - I am more sympathetic to the Iranians then to the Arabs.

Tel Aviv’s “quacky” duck movement arrives at City Hall.
By Karin Kloosterman , www.israel21c.org April 8, 2008

Walt Disney has Mickey Mouse, Charles Shultz has Snoopy, and Tel Aviv has Ha Barvaz, Hebrew for The Duck. So says Yuval Caspi, a visual artist and cartoonist from a workshop in Tel Aviv’s Florentine district. “Can you hear the sewing machine in the background?” he asks.

Caspi is charged with overseeing the creation of a 10-meter fabric duck, now being sewn into a balloon, which will sit atop Tel Aviv’s City Hall in Rabin Square starting the night of April 16. Installed for a month, the yellow duck is to honor Tel Aviv’s 100th anniversary.

The vision to adorn City Hall with a giant duck didn’t fall from the sky. Some cities have lions, others bears or eagles. But visions of ducks danced through the head of Dudu Geva, Israel’s most cherished cartoonist who died young from a heart attack in 2005.

When Geva died, his dreams to liven up Tel Aviv with bizarre art installations and stunts lived on.

The Duck was just one of his ideas.

Geva had been quoted saying that Tel Aviv was in dire need of decoration. “City Hall,” he said, “is a lost cause. If a giant duck is placed on its roof, everything will be turned upside down. The idea is to bring joy to people’s hearts and to make art a part of daily life.”

Other ideas that Geva thought about included opera singers who would spring out of garbage trucks singing arias, or the placement of giant snakes on the roofs of Tel Aviv’s swank Rothschild Boulevard.

Most of his ideas weren’t taken seriously though by the city. Recently, his family returned with the duck idea and within a week it was accepted. Come mid-April, Geva’s friends, colleagues and children will kick off the launch of the giant duck at Tel Aviv’s City Hall.

“On the 15th of April, there will be a small ceremony around 6pm in the evening in Rabin Square, and we will watch the duck on the building get inflated,” Caspi tells  ISRAEL21c. “It will be a small artistic event and a ceremony,” he says, intended to honor Geva, his duck and Israeli comics.

After all he contends, “Dudu Geva’s duck is not a duck. It’s The Duck - maybe the most famous Israeli symbol. Well, at least for Tel Avivians.

“This project is a memorial to him,” says Caspi.

Why ducks and why art? “Artists make life a bit happier,” says Caspi. “The whole idea is not a political one. It is not an artistic statement. It is all about being happy and making the city a nicer place to live - a place that kids like to be in.”

Geva’s daughter Tami recalls her father’s plan to turn Tel Aviv into a Duck City: “He never at any stage thought that they would take him seriously, but he wanted to spread the ‘duck movement’ as an artistic and social movement,” she said in a local newspaper.  “We don’t want the event to feel like a memorial,” she said, “We want my father’s idea of putting art in open public spaces to continue to exist, with humor, in the spirit of the duck.”

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www.SustainabiliTank.info would like to suggest that the renovated UN building get also something to sit on its top - like this duck. Clearly it could be another bird - what if it were a 10 meter desert-dove? We hope that some Sovereign Fund Could help turn this into a reality. 

Inside North Korea with the New York Philharmonic.          

Upcoming Exhibit: April 24–May 16, 2008
10:00 AM–5:00 PM, Monday through Friday
Open to the Public and Free of Charge

Opening Reception: Wednesday, April 30 at 5:30 PM

Exhibition Venue
The Korea Society Gallery
950 Third Avenue, Eighth Floor, New York City
(Building entrance on SW corner of Third Avenue and 57th Street)

The Korea Society is pleased to present Inside North Korea with the New York Philharmonic, an exhibition of photographs by award-winning photographer Mark Edward Harris that document the concert by the New York Philharmonic orchestra in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on February 26, 2008.

In these fascinating and often-stunning photographs, Harris offers a portrait of the historic event, encompassing both the concert itself and all the other major activities of the nearly 300-member delegation—artists, staff, accompanying patrons, guests and press corps. The exhibition captures multiple aspects of the New York Philharmonic orchestra’s two-day visit to Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Most notably, the photographs afford an inside view of this previously unimaginable influx of Americans—the largest group since the days of the Korean War over half a century ago—and insights into the inhabitants of this reclusive country.

The exhibition is accompanied by Harris’ book, Inside North Korea, published by Chronicle Books in 2007, which features photographs from previous visits to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. These photographs document life in Pyongyang and scenes from along the northern border with China, the highly militarized DMZ and the tightly controlled economic and tourist zones. The book includes short essays, extended captions and a foreword by noted North Korea expert Bruce Cumings. The book will be available for purchase at The Korea Society during the period of the exhibition.

Following its run at The Korea Society, Inside North Korea with the New York Philharmonic will be available for travel to colleges, universities, galleries and non-profit institutions across America.

For inquiries about the exhibition in The Korea Society Gallery, contact Jinyoung Kim at (212) 759-7525, ext. 316 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
For inquiries about hosting the exhibition in your gallery, contact Heewon Kim at (212) 759-7525, ext. 355

The subject of this posting came to our attention via an e-mail we received that a very special event will be held at the Manhattan Cathedral of the Saint John the Devine, April 13, 2008. we followed up and posted an announcement:

The Garrison Institute and Philip Glass Opera Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera at the Lincoln Center in New York are about Climate Change? You Have the Chance to find out April 13, 2008 at Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine.
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
Posted in Reporting from Washington DC, Future Meetings, Art Performance reviews, India, New York |

 http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2008/04…

Then we folllowed up and we like now to post for our readers some excerpts from the Metropolitan Opera’s angle regarding this very unusual new opera - the product of a team led by modern “master-builder” Phillip Glass.

Satyagraha, Philip Glass’s landmark opera about Gandhi’s formative years in South Africa, has its Metropolitan Opera premiere in a new production on April 11.

Following its hit run in London, Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch’s extraordinary new staging, conducted by Dante Anzolini, features Richard Croft as the visionary leader.

Met initiatives include art exhibitions, talks, an outdoor campaign, and related public events.

New York, NY (April 2, 2008)— Following its hit run in London last spring, Philip Glass’s landmark opera, Satyagraha, will premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on April 11 at 8:00 p.m. in a new production that has won raves from critics and audiences.

Satyagraha (Sanskrit for “truth-force”) is a musical meditation on Gandhi’s early years in South Africa, when he developed his philosophy of non-violence.

This seminal work, composed in 1979, has been re-imagined by director Phelim McDermott and associate director/set designer Julian Crouch; this co-production of the Met and English National Opera (ENO) has been created in collaboration with Improbable, McDermott and Crouch’s acclaimed London-based theater company.

The Times of London praised the production as “a masterwork of theatrical intensity and integrity.” The libretto, by Glass and Constance DeJong, is taken from the Bhagavad Gita, and the opera is performed in Sanksrit.

“I was determined to bring this modern masterpiece to the Met,” said Met General Manager Peter Gelb. “I’m very pleased that what I believe to be Philip Glass’s greatest opera is having its long-awaited premiere on our stage.”

In conjunction with the Met performances, a series of events and exhibitions inspired by Satyagraha and Gandhi’s message of non-violent protest are taking place throughout the city, including two visual art exhibitions at Lincoln Center and a provocative outdoor transit campaign.

In their role debuts, tenor Richard Croft portrays Gandhi, with Rachelle Durkin, Earle Patriarco, and Alfred Walker in other leading roles. Conductor Dante Anzolini also makes his Met debut, leading all seven performances through Tuesday, May 1. Lighting designer Paule Constable and costume designer Kevin Pollard join McDermott and Crouch in making Met debuts.

When the production of Satyagraha premiered in London last year, many performances sold out, and the show became ENO’s best-selling contemporary work in more than 20 years. The Guardian praised it as “an astonishingly beautiful work…Phelim McDermott’s staging, undertaken in collaboration with the theatre company Improbable, is also a thing of wonder.” Best known to U.S. audiences as the creative force behind the hit Off-Broadway “junk opera” Shockheaded Peter, McDermott and Crouch have conceived a beautiful and striking production that features improvisational puppetry by the twelve person Skills Ensemble and projections created by the British film and media production company Fifty Nine Productions. The staging also incorporates corrugated metal, used in the colonial structures often seen in photographs of Gandhi’s campaign, and newspaper, which reflects Gandhi’s pioneering use of the media to communicate his message.

Satyagraha is the second opera in Philip Glass’s famous “portrait” trilogy, which also includes Einstein on the Beach (1975) and Akhnaten (1983-84). Satyagraha is based on Mohandas K. Gandhi’s formative years as a young lawyer in South Africa, when he developed his philosophy of non-violent protest as a force for change. The opera had its world premiere in 1980 at the Netherlands Opera.

The opera’s Met premiere this month coincides with the anniversaries of Gandhi’s Salt March on Dandi, Gujarat on April 6, 1930, and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, widely recognized as a disciple of Gandhi, on April 4, 1968.

“Gandhi was a great man who thought the power of truth could change the world…I can identify with that idea,” Glass says. “By the late 1970s, I thought that the political and social landscape had become so violent and that it was really time to think about the man who invented the idea of social change and non-violence. Little did I know that 30 years later, it would be far more violent. I don’t know what the power of art has to do in the world. Yet, when I talk to people about this piece, it seems to have had a strong meaning for them.” This is the second Glass opera produced by the Met; The Voyage, based on Christopher Columbus’s journey to America, was commissioned by the Met and had its world premiere here in 1992.

The Met’s new production of Satyagraha is underwritten by Agnes Varis, a Met managing director who also sponsored an outdoor advertising campaign for Satyagraha that launched this month. The campaign, featuring four bold, provocative questions (such as “Could an opera make us warriors for peace?”) superimposed over an image of Gandhi, runs for one month on bus shelters and phone kiosks throughout New York City. “I decided to underwrite this production of Satyagraha because of the brilliance of Philip Glass’s music and the message of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.,” said Dr. Varis. “I’ve always been interested in freedom movements, and Gandhi and King were leaders who changed our society.”

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Met Exhibitions and Events:

The Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met: CHUCK CLOSE PHILIP GLASS 40 YEARS.
Monday, March 17 through May 2008/Metropolitan Opera.

Over the last 40 years, the artist Chuck Close has created more than 100 different studies of Philip Glass, in many different mediums. To honor the decades-long friendship, Gallery Met—the Metropolitan Opera’s exhibition space for contemporary visual art—is presenting CHUCK CLOSE PHILIP GLASS 40 YEARS, a new exhibition that features 18 portraits of Glass created by Close between 1968 and 2008. Organized by Gallery Met Director Dodie Kazanjian, the show includes paintings, photographs, lithographs, tapestries, etchings, and engravings, in mediums ranging from acrylic to watercolor and daguerreotype to stamp pad ink. Gallery visitors will also be able to hear Philip Glass’s Musical Portrait of Chuck Close during the exhibition; the 15-minute piece for solo piano premiered at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2005.

As part of a new visual arts program begun this year by Kazanjian, renowned painter Francesco Clemente has created an original artwork inspired by Satyagraha for a banner currently hanging on the front of the opera house.

New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, “The Force of Truth: Glass, Gandhi, and Satyagraha.”

Monday, March 17, through Saturday, April 19/Lincoln Center.

In collaboration with the Met, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center is presenting an exhibition of Satyagraha production photos and design sketches, historical images, and collages, as well as a Gandhi-inspired mural by artist Tamar Hirschl entitled “Protest.”

The exhibition is open to the public and free of charge. Hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm; Monday and Thursday from noon to 8:00 pm; and Saturdays from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.
Guggenheim Works & Process: Satyagraha.

was held - Tuesday, March 25, at 8:00 p.m./The Guggenheim Museum.
Philip Glass, Julian Crouch, Phelim McDermott, and Met General Manager Peter Gelb discussed the creative process behind the new production. Glass (accompanying on piano), Richard Croft, and Bradley Garvin (Prince Arjuna) performed musical excerpts, with additional piano accompaniment by Dennis Giauque. This event was sold-out, but video clips will be available in mid-April at www.metopera.org. For more information, please call (212) 423-3587.

Metropolitan Opera Guild: Bringing Satyagraha to Life.

Monday, April 14, at 6:00 p.m./Metropolitan Opera House.
Philip Glass talks with Met Artistic Assistant Manager Sarah Billinghurst about Satyagraha. For tickets and information, please call (212) 769-7028.

Metropolitan Opera Guild: Philip Glass and India.

Tuesday, April 22, at 6:00 p.m./Metropolitan Opera House

Satyagraha draws from the Bhagavad Gita and from the life and writings of Mahatma Gandhi. Dr. W. Anthony Sheppard examines this opera and its source material, and reveals the enduring impact of Indian music on the career of this world-renowned contemporary composer. For tickets and information, please call (212) 769-7028.

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Outside the Met:

The Satya Graha Forum
On the occasion of the opera’s Met debut, an independent consortium (separate from the Met) of New York cultural, arts, environmental, educational, and spiritual institutions working with Glass, has launched an initiative to create a dialogue on Gandhi’s concept of social change. The Forum, which kicks off on April 6 with a gathering at the Gandhi statue in New York City’s Union Square Park, will present events, lectures, and performances throughout the month of April. For more information, go to www.satya-graha.org

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About the composer
Award-winning composer Philip Glass is world renowned for his operas, symphonies, concertos, film scores, and solo works. Glass’s landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, created with Robert Wilson, had its U.S. premiere independently produced at the Met in 1976. He subsequently made Einstein part of a trilogy, resulting in the creation of his operas Satyagraha, which premiered in 1980, and Akhnaten (1983). Glass and Wilson worked on several other projects including the CIVIL warS—Rome (1984), written for the 1984 Olympics; White Raven (1991), commissioned by Portugal to celebrate its history of discovery and premiering at EXPO ‘98 in Lisbon and at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2001; and Monsters of Grace (1998), a digital 3-D opera. Glass’s other recent opera collaborations include Galileo Galilei (2002), with Mary Zimmerman, and The Sound of a Voice (2003) with David Henry Hwang. Glass’s opera Waiting for the Barbarians, based on the book by John Coetzee, had its premiere at the Erfurt Theater in Germany followed by its United States premiere in January 2007 at Austin Lyric Opera. His opera about the Civil War, Appomattox, commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, premiered there last October. His other operas include: The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1986), The Fall of the House of Usher (1988), Hydrogen Jukebox (1990) with a libretto written by Allen Ginsberg and based on his poetry, Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five (1997) with librettos written by Doris Lessing and based on her novels, The Voyage (1992), and an opera trilogy based on the films of Jean Cocteau, Orphée (1993), La Belle et la Bête (1994) and Les Enfants Terribles (1996). Glass’s wide repertoire also includes music for dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. His film scores for Richard Eyre’s Notes on a Scandal and Martin Scorsese’s Kundun have received Academy Award nominations, while his score for Peter Weir’s The Truman Show won him a Golden Globe. His film score for Stephen Daldry’s The Hours received Golden Globe, Grammy, and Academy Award nominations, and an award in Film Music from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

About the Performers
American tenor Richard Croft makes his role debut as Gandhi in the Met’s production of Satyagraha. He has performed with leading opera companies and orchestras around the world, including the Paris Opera, the Berlin State Opera, Zurich Opera, Glyndebourne Festival, Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. A 1984 Eastern Division winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Croft has performed several roles at the Met, beginning with his debut in 1991 as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Additional Met roles include Cassio in Otello, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni (which he also recently sang at the Seattle Opera) and Ferrando in Così fan tutte (also the role of his Houston Grand Opera and Washington Opera debuts). He recently performed in Haydn’s Armida at the Salzburg Festival and Beethoven’s An die Ferne Geliebte song cycle at the University of North Texas, where he has been Professor of Voice since 2004.

Winner of the 2001 Met National Council Auditions, Rachelle Durkin (Ms. Schlesen) joined the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindeman Young Artists Development Program in 2001 and made her Met debut in 2002 as the First Handmaiden in Sly. She has since performed in several Met productions, including La Cenerentola, Jenůfa, Benvenuto Cellini, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Queen of Spades, L’Italiana in Algeri, and Parsifal.

Baritone Earle Patriarco (Mr. Kallenbach) has appeared with many of the world’s opera companies including San Francisco Opera (where he was an Adler Fellow and a member of the Merola Opera Program), Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Paris Opera, Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, and several others. Mr. Patriarco debuted at the Met in 1996 as Ping in Turandot and later that season sang Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. His other roles at the Met include Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore, Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus, Marcello and Schaunard in La Bohème, and Taddeo in L’Italiana in Algeri, among others.

American bass-baritone Alfred Walker (Parsi Rustomji) recently performed the role of Allazim in the Peter Sellars’ production of Mozart’s Zaide at the Vienna Festival, London’s Barbican Centre, and Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival. A member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindeman Young Artists Development Program from 1997 to 2000, Walker debuted at the Met in 1998 as Grégorio in Roméo et Juliette. His other Met performances include roles in Samson et Dalila, Pelléas et Mélisande, Les Troyens, and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.

Argentine conductor Dante Anzolini is currently Music Director of the Orchestra of the Teatro Argentino Opera Theatre, and principal guest conductor of the Linz Theater in Austria. In May 2006, he led the Brucknerorchester of Linz in tour to Dornbirn (Austria) and Stuttgart, and Cologne and Düsseldorf (Germany) in a program including Bruckner Symphony No. 4 (1876) and the European premiere of Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 8. He has recently conducted the Matav Orchestra of Budapest, Hungary, in a program of film music (Bernstein, Gershwin and Rota). He made his debut in Vienna with the Vienna Symphony in September 2007. In September 2005, he led the MIAGI Ensemble of South Africa, in Johannesburg and Cape Town, in a program that featured world music singer Miriam Makeba. In 2002, Anzolini made his French debut in the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg. That same year he conducted an acclaimed production of Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy, featuring Ute Lemper. As a composer, he has written many piano solo, orchestral, and chamber pieces.

About the production team
Phelim McDermott is an Artistic Director of Improbable, a London theater company founded in 1996, and has been directing and performing since 1984. In 1999, he and Julian Crouch created Shockheaded Peter: A Junk Opera for Off-Broadway at the Little Schubert Theatre. In February 2001, the show opened in London’s West End and won the Olivier Award for Best Entertainment in 2002, among other awards, and was nominated for a South Bank Show Theater Award. McDermott’s Improbable productions include the multiple award-winning 70 Hill Lane, Lifegame, Animo, Coma, Spirit, Sticky, Cinderella, and The Hanging Man. Most recently he directed Theatre of Blood at the National Theatre. He has also directed The Ghost Downstairs at Leicester Haymarket, Dr. Faustus and Improbable Tales (an entirely improvised two-hour play) at Nottingham Playhouse, The Servant of Two Masters, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Government Inspector for West Yorkshire Playhouse, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the English Shakespeare Company in 1996-97. McDermott has also worked as an actor in radio, film, television and theater, including: Too Clever by Half; A Flea in Her Ear; and The Illusion (Old Vic, also assistant director); Robin Hood; Peter Greenaway’s The Baby of Macon; Tomorrow La Scala!; and Home Road Movies (British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award winner). With Julian Crouch, McDermott will design and produce the Metropolitan Opera’s 125th Anniversary Gala in the 2008-09 season. The team is also slated to direct the new Addams Family musical by Andrew Lippa, scheduled to debut on Broadway in 2009-10.

Julian Crouch is a Co-Artistic Director of Improbable, where he has collaborated with Phelim McDermott on Animo, 70 Hill Lane, Lifegame, Coma, Spirit, Sticky, Angela Carter’s Cinderella, and Shockheaded Peter. They also co-directed and designed The Quest for Don Quixote, which received a Best Design Nomination in the London Fringe Awards, and the English Shakespeare Company’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Initially a mask and puppet maker, Crouch toured the world with the Trickster Theatre Company from 1985 to 1986. In the following years, he specialized in site specific design, including 17 productions for Welfare State International. In 2004, Crouch designed the production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum for London’s National Theatre. Crouch was the set designer for Jerry Springer–The Opera, which toured venues in the United Kingdom in 2006 and played for two nights at Carnegie Hall in January 2008. He designed the new production by Dominic Cooke of The Magic Flute that opens at the Welsh National Opera in 2008. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) in the United Kingdom. Crouch will design the sets for the Met’s new production of composer John Adam’s Doctor Atomic, premiering on October 13, 2008.

Costume designer Kevin Pollard first worked with Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott on their production of The Government Inspector, which led to a later collaboration on A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the English Shakespeare Company and Shockheaded Peter. His work also includes Père Ubu (co-design with Richard Foxton), and Out in the City and Tom Sawyer (co-design with Simon Banam) for Contact Theatre Manchester.

Lighting designer Paule Constable was nominated for a 2007 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Play for her original lighting design for Melly Still’s drama with music, Coram Boy. Her other Broadway lighting credits include revivals of Moon for the Misbegotten (2007), Jumpers (2004), Amadeus (1999), and Conor McPherson’s original play, The Weir, directed by Ian Rickson. Her opera credits include: The Magic Flute and La Traviata at Opera North; The Miserly Knight, Gianni Schicchi, La Bohème, Carmen, and Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne; Don Giovanni and Káťa Kabanová at Welsh National Opera; and La Clemenza di Tito, Manon, Alcina, Rape of Lucretia, and Tosca at English National Opera, among others. She is the lighting designer for the National Theatre’s production of Waves, which makes its U.S. premiere at Lincoln Center in November 2008. Paule is a member of the British multidisciplinary theater company, Complicite.

———————-

Live Broadcasts to be heard around the world

Satyagraha will be experienced by millions of people around the world this season on radio and via streaming on the Internet, through new distribution platforms the Met has established with various media partners.

The network premiere of Satyagraha on the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network Metropolitan is Saturday, April 19 at 1:30 pm. Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Channel 85) will carry live broadcasts of the opening night performance on Friday, April 11 at 8:00 pm, with additional live broadcasts on Monday, April 14 at 8:00 pm, Saturday, April 19 at 1:30 pm, and Tuesday, April 22 at 8:00 pm.

The opening night performance will be streamed live from the Met’s web site, www.metopera.org <http://www.metopera.org/> , via RealNetworks®.

About the Met

The Metropolitan Opera Company has now a groundbreaking commissioning program in partnership with New York’s Lincoln Center Theater (LCT), that provides renowned composers and playwrights with the resources to create and develop new works at the Met and at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater. There are currently 12 collaborations in development; the first workshop, for musician and composer Rufus Wainwright’s original opera, is tentatively scheduled for January, 2009. The Met’s partnership with LCT is part of the company’s larger initiative to commission new operas from contemporary composers, present modern masterpieces alongside the classic repertory, and provide a venue for artists to nurture their work. Upcoming seasons include new productions of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic (2008-09), John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles (2009-10), and Thomas Adès’s The Tempest (2011-12).

The Met has recently launched several audience development initiatives, such as Open House dress rehearsals, the Arnold and Marie Schwartz Gallery Met, reduced ticket prices—including an immensely popular new rush ticket program, and an annual Holiday Series presentation for families.

# # #

For more information, please contact:

Sommer Hixson/Peter Clark
Metropolitan Opera
(212) 870-7457
 shixson at metopera.org
 pclark at metopera.org

Reverend Billy, the 35+ Voice Stop Shopping (Stop Evicting) Gospel Choir, and the Not Buying It Band.

@ St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery131 E 10th St at 2nd Ave and 10th Street in Manhattan
Sunday April 6th,  2008, 6PM.

“The most pointed and courageous political theatre in New York.” - The New York Times.
“He’s Elmer Gantry plus Michael Moore” - The Wall Street Journal.

Tickets: Suggested - $10 - Pay what you can (more or less), no-one turned away!
Directions:  Take the #6 train to Astor Place or the L Train to 1st Ave
See revbilly.com for more info.

Sorry for the last minute notice! For this show at St. Mark’s Church, the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir becomes the Stop Eviction Gospel Choir.

Rev Sez: “Now the Village is shadowed by the worst violence of all: strategic dullness. The Attack of the Logos. Join our gathering of indy shopkeepers and friends from the East Village. Our faith establishes an impenetrable force field down the center of 2nd Ave against hordes of chain stores. We will dedicate a new 100% Fair Trade café. We bestow Fabulous Sainthood on the cobbler at the intersection of 10th Street and 2nd Avenue for 45 years, Mr. Angelo Fontana, now evicted from his shoe repair shop. Urban design adventurists, allies of the East Village Community Coalition, will explain anti-chain store legislation in the works. Amen!”

Rick Sez: Stop Shopping (Unconsciously) is the message of Reverend Billy’s Church of Stop Stopping! Sweatshops, rainforest destruction, big-money special interest Washington DC lobbyists, the war in Iraq, climate change, species extinctions, media consolidation and other crises are fueled by millions of consumers who have not yet begun to prioritize buying sustainable, organic, fair-trade, socially resposnsible goods and services. Rev Billy’s Blessing: “Back away, children, back away from the product! Got a hurricane in it! Got a war in it! You buy it and oh the Devil got you…”

This Sunday, if you or your friends are in NYC please join us for another high energy, rabble rousing show. You’ll hear plenty of singin’ and testifyin’ with Rev. Billy’s irreverent but insightful unique blend of social issues/politics, theater, humor and great gospel music. As “Church Organist” I can tell you that the 35+ member Gospel Choir and band get better all the time!

Rick Ulfik
Director
We, The World
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Posted in Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, UN Commission on Sustainable Development, Global Warming issues, Future Meetings, Art Performance reviews, New York

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 Dance of the Oil Fairies
By Kelpie Wilson, t r u t h o u t Environment Editor

Wednesday 02 April 2008

On April Fools’ Day, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming invited executives from the five biggest US oil companies to answer questions about high gas prices, oil company profits and the future of oil. Executives from Exxon, Shell, BP America, Chevron and ConocoPhillips responded to a battery of questions from committee members who ranged from strongly skeptical to downright sycophantic (all the sycophants were Republicans).

Even the most hard-hitting questioners, however, failed to pin the execs down on the real issue, which is how to convince an oil industry that is running up against absolute supply limits to switch gears and invest resources in what Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Washington) called the “clean energy revolution.”  With practiced facility, the oil execs danced around the question and re