“I was deeply interested in how Philip would treat these lyrics. It was as simple as that,” said Cohen. “I gave [him] a book and he presented me with this really stunning evening of theater … It wasn’t really a collaboration. It was a kind of ... collision, and something very beautiful has emerged that I think is better than both of us.”
In theory it shouldn’t have worked, he said. It was like the bumblebee — aerodynamically it shouldn’t be able to fly at all, but it can, and does.
Glass, too, was clearly pleased with the outcome, saying that Cohen wasn’t just a poet, but a poet who understood the human voice.
“What you get,” he added, “the gift of age, along with fatigue and disease and all the other things ... the great gift ... is the technique and knowledge of how things can work together.
“To be fully human is to be both in the world of the senses and to be in the world of the imagination at the same time.”
Tickets for this weekend’s performances, then, should be seized with both hands. Will it be like hearing Mozart or Bach in person, or like attending a pop concert by a widely-loved veteran performer? It’s not important. It’s the great Philip Glass, and he’s here in person in Taiwan. That’s what really matters.
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