• Philip Glass
  • The Trial (2014)

  • Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc (World)

The Trial is a co-commission and co-production between Music Theatre Wales, the Royal Opera House, Theater Magdeburg and Scottish Opera

  • 1(pic).1(ca).1(bcl).0/1.1.1.0/perc/pf(cel)/str(1.1.1.1.0)
  • S, Mz, 2T, 2Bar, B-Bar, B
  • 2 hr
  • Christopher Hampton based on the novel by Franz Kafka
  • English

Programme Note

SYNOPSIS

On his thirtieth birthday, Josef K. is arrested by an unknown authority for an unspecified crime. All his efforts to understand the charge are foiled. Those around him are deeply concerned that he is not taking the case seriously. His ultimate execution is equally inexplicable.

CAST
Fräulein Bürstner/Leni/Offstage Voice - Soprano
Frau Grubach/Washerwoman (Wife of Court Usher)/ Offstage Voice/Woman - Mezzo-soprano
Titorelli/Flogger/Student (Berthold) - Tenor
Guard 1 (Franz)/Block/Offstage Voice - Tenor
Josef K. - Baritone
Magistrate/Assistant/Lawyer Huld/Offstage Voice - Baritone
Guard 2 (Willem)/Court Usher/Clerk of the Court/Priest - Bass-baritone
Inspector/Uncle Albert - Bass

Media

Scores

Act I
Act II

Reviews

...a deeply atmospheric concept, one perfectly complemented by the score. Glass's relentless, chugging rhythms capture the sense of inevitability running through the narrative, while evoking the soullessness of the bureaucracy so forcefully critiqued in the novel. This composer has a way of insinuating without insisting; of allowing the tension to simmer without boiling over, that is remarkably Kafkaesque. We're left with the constant impression that something ghastly is lurking just out of sight. [...] it exceeded expectations. The verdict? Unmissable.
Hannah Nepil, The Financial Times
13th October 2014
There are ear-catching moments; wry little Yiddish-sounding clarinet tunes, a touch of ragtime in the seduction scene, sepulchral arpeggios confined to the deepest bass instruments, and black-comedy Prokofiev touches for woodblock and other percussion.
Richard Morrison, The Times
13th October 2014
the score adds up to much more than just a play with musical accompaniment. There’s a real flavour of between-the-wars Austro-Germany about the sound world; the prominence of clarinet, trumpet and trombone in the textures, with brittle percussion and more than a hint of marching and dancing rhythms, seems to evoke the world of Kurt Weill especially, and pieces like Weill’s Happy End and the Mahagonny Songspiel aren’t that far away from The Trial either.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
12th October 2014
“many fleeting moments of invention and beauty”
Alexandra Coghlan , The Arts Desk
12th October 2014
“The music has lost the relentless mechanic drive of Glass’ early operas and found and idiom more sinuously inflected and varied: although its compositional basis is still the sequential repetition of arpeggios, there’s a touch of Jazz Age insouciance here, a macabre march to the scaffold there, and some pretty sonorities coloured by celeste, cor anglais and bass trombone.”
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph
12th October 2014