Akhnaten (Akhnaten)

With Akhenaten, minimal music pioneer Philip Glass set a memorial to one of the most enigmatic figures in world history. Barrie Kosky stages the rise and fall of the pharaoh as visually beautiful as it is movement-intensive.

Thebes around 1300 BC: Amenhotep III is dead. His son Amenhotep IV, who later called himself Akhenaten, is crowned king. The young pharaoh announces the beginning of a new era — he destroys the temple of the polytheistic religion of the Amun priests and declares the sun god Aton the only deity. But Akhenaten's reign is not permanent. The Amun priests restore the old order, and Akhenaten is overthrown as the founder of the first monotheistic religion.

Barrie Kosky dispenses with Egyptian references in his production. Instead, we experience a white stage space with abstract images and ritualized movement sequences that make Philip Glass's hypnotic music tangible like a mantra.