The Cave is a multimedia opera in three acts by Steve Reich to an English libretto by his wife Beryl Korot. It was first performed in 1994 by the Steve Reich Ensemble and conducted by Paul Hillier. The title "The Cave" refers to The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
The main narrative thread that runs through the opera is the life story of Abraham as it is told in various religious texts, and how this story is understood and recounted by individual people coming from different religious and cultural contexts.
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Plot [edit]
Steve Reich and Beryl Korot asked questions such as "Who is Abraham?", "Who is Sarah?" and "Who is Ishmael?" and recorded answers that were given by Israeli, Palestinian and American interviewees. This way they were able to build up an impression of the varying ways that these three groups of people view the story of Abraham/Ibrahim and his immediate family.
Brief spoken extracts from the interviews were used both as they were, and also as repeated musical phrases based on the prosody of the words spoken. These passages were interspersed with other recordings which primarily included readings of the story of Abraham as it is recounted in various religious texts, as can be seen from the section headings listed below.
Act I [edit]
- Typing Music (Genesis XVI)
- Who is Abraham?
- Genesis XII
- Who is Sarah?
- Who is Hagar?
- Typing Music Repeat
- Who is Ishmael?
- Genesis XVIII
- Who is Isaac?
- Genesis XXI
- The casting out of Ishmael and Hagar
- Machpelah Commentary
- Genesis XXV (chanted in Hebrew from the Torah by Ephrim Isaac)
- Interior of the Cave
Act II [edit]
- Surah 3 (chanted in Arabic from the Koran by Sheikh Dahoud Atalah, Muqri of Al-Aksa Mosque)
- Who is Ibrahim?
- Who is Hajar?
- The near sacrifice
- El Khalil Commentary
- Interior of the cave
Act III [edit]
- Who is Abraham?
- Who is Sarah?
- Who is Hagar?
- Who is Ishmael?
- The Binding of Isaac
- The Cave of Macpelah
References [edit]
External links [edit]
- Review on Allmusic
- Two interviews with Steve Reich by Bruce Duffie; The second (from November, 1995) has a long discussion about The Cave
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