The Cave (opera)

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.

Plot

Steve Reich and Beryl Korot asked questions such as "Who is Sarah?" and "Who is Ismael?" 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

1. Typing Music (Genesis XVI)
2. Who is Abraham?
3. Genesis XII
4. Who is Sarah?
5. Who is Hagar?
6. Typing Music Repeat
7. Who is Ismael?
8. Genesis XVIII
9. Who is Isaac?
10. Genesis XXI
11. The casting out of Ishmael and Hagar
12. Machpelah Commentary
13. Genesis XXV (chanted in Hebrew from the Torah by Ephrim Isaac)
14. Interior of the Cave

Act II

1. Surah 3 (chanted in Arabic from the Koran by Sheikh Dahoud Atalah, Muqri of Al-Aksa Mosque)
2. Who is Ibrahim?
3. Who is Hajar?
4. The near sacrifice
5. El Khalil Commentary
6. Interior of the cave

Act III

1. Who is Abraham?
2. Who is Sarah?
3. Who is Hagar?
4. Who is Ishmael?
5. The Binding of Isaac
6. The Cave of Macpelah

External links

• Review on Allmusic
• Two interviews with Steve Reich by Bruce Duffie; The second (from November, 1995) has long discussion about The Cave