The Witches of Venice

Philip Glass - The Witches of Venice

The Witches of Venice
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CD Details

Artist: Philip Glass
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2006-11-14
Music Label: Orange Mountain
Soundtracks:
  1. The Lagoon
  2. The Philosophers Have Arrived
  3. No Solution
  4. The Fairies
  5. 'Life Is Hard'
  6. 'I'm Not A Fool'
  7. The Plant-Boy's Song
  8. The Witches Rush In
  9. The Wind Blows
  10. The Witches Palace
  11. Inside The Palace
  12. Ghosts And Skeletons!
  13. The Ogre
  14. Ogre's Song
  15. Plant-Boy Flees
  16. Dance Of The Witches
  17. Witch Mother
  18. Gondolas Bringing Guests
  19. 'Away, Pigeon, Away!'
  20. Plant-Boy's Tears
  21. In The Chandelier
  22. Glorious Escape!
  23. A Happy Ending
  24. Life Is Hard, A Good Red Wine

Music reviews of The Witches of Venice

Music Review: A reinvented Biblical tale
Rating: 5 Stars

It all starts with the desire of the King of Venice to have an heir procreated by the philosophers of the world, which leads to total failure. The singing is at the crossroads of Purcell's harmony and modern amplified singing, and the musical sentences open and close in mid-air between tonal notes. The use of electro-acoustic instruments introduces a very modern texture to the music, flying easily in thin air and with rhythmic notes building a sound solid background. The Fairies are thus invoked with long sort of repetitive notes on a background of an ever-turning harmonic phrase. They bring a metaphor of the sexual act that could give birth to a child. A tree to be planted and grown tall carefully and when it finally blooms, explodes into blooms, ejaculates blooms, a child can be born. But the king throws this simple lesson of sexual education in the form of a tree through the window. A maid, sustained by red wine, plants the tree in the garden. And the sun warms up the plant into producing a child that springs out of it. But the king refuses what is evident and has the child imprisoned in the tree by twelve guards, twelve mind you like Jesus' apostles. And the sun feeds the boy with the fruit of the tree. And the flower-boy knows better. He feels abandoned and even rejected as the human boy he knows he is. The music has a very somber and sad tone at that moment, regretting the freedom the boy never had. And it is then that two witches come to visit the boy and find out he is just like the flower girl they have. So they invite the King and his Queen to their Summer Dance and the boy who has overheard about the flower girl wants to escape and find her. This arrival of the witches is dramatic indeed and with a complete change of music. Staccatos, and brutal percussions, tambourines and heavy ascending notes on the keyboard and some electric flashes of sound like lightning behind. Both turning and spinning, tumbling and rotating, and at the same time hammering the supernatural event into our ears. With the help of the wind and the creation of a twig and branch pigeon he builds, he escapes the garden and flies over the heads of the guards. And the opera considers this expulsion and escape from the garden of birth as the real birth of the boy as a boy. The garden of Eden was a prison and here the boy, the very fruit of the tree, escapes it to look for a girl. Complete reversal of the garden of Eden. He is flown over Venice and some organ music tells us they are arrived at the Witches' castle. And he just has to use the door-handle to open the door and enter. The boy searches the palace but he is assaulted by ghosts and phantoms. In the wine-cellar he asks for the flower-girl from a narcissistic ogre. And the organ again sounds up and powerful like the enchanted place or the voice of the ogre. He sings as if out of Monteverdi and seems to have a special diet: only European princesses and American heiresses. Pigeon and boy, with the help of the wind, escape up the stairs chased by the ogre. We get then a music that is directly inspired from the accompanying music of mute films in the old days. And we move to the Summer Dance of the Witches. They are getting ready for their favorite entertainment: dancing. But the boy goes on climbing and finds himself ion the bedrooms of the witches that he searches. Then to the tower where he finds the room of the witch mother who refuses to dance. In spite of the cautious advice given to him by the wind, he goes into the room. The music changes and from a dance we get into a march of demons. But the witch mother refuses to answer. So the boy goes to the ball-room, the only room he has not searched yet. The guests are arriving in gondolas and the King and Queen finally come in splendor and glory. But they reject and kick away the pigeon and the boy who gets sad and starts crying. The sadness of the moment is expressed by a musical sentence that ends lamenting in midair or mid-score and suddenly decays into nothingness. The world is gone. The boy is alone and crying. And he then discovers the little flower-girl has been imprisoned in the chandelier. With the help of the wind she jumps into the pigeon. The music changes with plenty of voices and crystalline sounds bringing dawn and daybreak. And the pigeon suddenly flies away with the boy and the girl to meet the sun and the wind in the sky of Venice. And that is the final birth this time escaping the chandelier of the witches, escaping some curse like Sleeping Beauty woken up by the Prince Charming. And it all ends with the maid who is well seasoned in red wine. As if this fairy and witch story could only be produced by drunkenness, and as if wine was the only potion that could bring happy endings. The last piece introduces chords that could come out of Elm Street, hummed by Freddy Kruger, the danger they have escaped from. The music is expressive to the utmost inspired by the music the cinema is using all the time but also by integrating all the possibilities of modern amplification and electro-acoustic instruments. The voice are used to create a supplementary level in that sound universe and to humanize the sensations we may feel and experience. This musical composition is a perfect dramatic ballet.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
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