Satyagraha - TNT
16th April 2007

Fans of Philip Glass's spine-tingling music are in for a treat at the ENO's collaboration with Improbable theatre's Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch. Adopting Gandhi's own philosophy, they've opted for the simplicity of a curved corrugated iron set and employ sticky tape, newspaper and outsize papier-mâché puppets to illustrate the development of his doctrine of non-violence. The libretto (culled from the Bhagavad-Gita) is in Sanskrit. So, freed from the distraction of deciphering the words, you can give yourself up to the sheer power of the music and glorious singing. Alan Oke's Gandhi is superb — pure-voiced, dignified and measured — and, when he finally stands, a tiny figure dwarfed by Martin Luther King raised high on a pedestal behind him, the image and the emotion are unforgettable.
English National Opera at the London Coliseum, St Martin's Ln, WC2, 0870-145 0200. Until May 1

LOUISE KINGSLEY