IN THE PENAL COLONY

A distinguished visitor arrives in an unnamed place to witness an execution. The procedure is expected to be efficient, quiet and anonymous, administered by an elaborate machine. But torture is a messy business, and not everything goes according to plan. At what point does the silence of the visitor become immoral? When does non-intervention become a crime?

With the Australian premiere of In the Penal Colony, Sydney Chamber Opera presents the first Philip Glass opera ever to be performed in Sydney. Glass, the pioneering American minimalist and cult figure who celebrates his 75th birthday this year, set this powerful and confronting short story by Franz Kafka to music in 2000. The highly charged claustrophobia of Glass’s hypnotic repetition resonates powerfully with Kafka’s nightmarish vision of imprisonment and execution. Featuring just two singers, one actor and a string quintet, In the Penal Colony is as intimate and intense as opera gets.

© 2000 Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc. Used by Permission.