On the one hand, it certainly has plenty of the 'decorative' decadence, flamboyance and gay masochistic displays that have led to his films being criticised for 'conveying little more than a haze of homosexual absorption' and being 'separatist, magnifying his own gay sensibility'.19 On the other hand, this sort of criticism can itself be seen as homophobic and insensitive to Jarman's own project of reclaiming cultural icons from the past in the sendee of legitimising gay identity in the present. In her acute discussion of Jarman's appropriations of Shakespeare, Kate Chedgzoy writes that Jarman 'saw the present as the culmination of the past, and modern gay identity as the accretion of long centuries of desire and oppression'.20 The trajectory of homosexual desire and oppression is certainly a central theme of Akenaten, and perhaps it makes sense to see it as the forerunner of Jarman's films based on historical characters such as Sebastiane (1976), Caravag- gio (1987) and Edward II, all of which explore some of the same issues as Akenaten. The ambiguous ending of Akenaten, which may offer hope for the future rather than a masochistic image of internalised oppression, pain and loss, also echoes the messages of Jarman's other films. 'Without our past our future cannot be reflected, the past is our mirror', as Jarman himself wrote.21 I see Akenaten as a successful example of the breadth and scope of Jarman's artistic vision, through which he rose above the essentialism of other gay Akhenatens to comment on the relationship of the past to contemporary sexual politics in a radical and spectacular way.
Although sharing many primary sources with Jarman's screenplay, Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten offers little of Jarman's insight either on ancient Egypt or on contemporary culture. Akhnaten has been called 'a form of "singing archaeology" ' which effectively avoids political debates, in spite of Glass's debt to the epic theatre of Bertolt Brecht.22 Glass's lack of political engagement also applies to his use of camp. Although Glass's and Jarman's versions of the Akhenaten myth can both be seen as high camp, they deploy camp very differently in relation to gay culture. Jarman's camp Akhenaten illuminates gay history, while for Glass he merely provides a liberating style, a way of presenting a universal story through artifice and exaggeration which separates camp from its roots in gay culture. As such, Akhnaten works best as a marvellous entertainment, a piece of Glass's music theatre.
According to Glass's own account of his opera's development, his interest in Akhenaten came from the idea (following Breasted, Weigall, et al.) that Akhenaten is an inspirational man of ideas. He is thus an appropriate figure to complete Glass's operatic trilogy, the other two parts of which are Satyagraha (about Mahatma Gandhi) and Einstein on the Beach. Glass regards all three as men out of time, whose ideas transcend temporal boundaries. 'I saw that if Einstein epitomized the man of Science, and Gandhi the man of Politics, then Akhnaten would be the man of Religion.'2' It is a rather old-fashioned view of Akhenaten, but Glass is not interested in historical accuracy. I also suspect that he himself has some personal involvement with the idea of the misunderstood genius. For a long time the musical establishment cold-shouldered him, and he did not earn a living as a musician until he was in his early forties. The publisher's blurb on the back cover of Glass's musical autobiography, Opera on the Beach (1987), describes it as the testimony of 'a true innovator who has stuck to his beliefs in the face of prejudice, misunderstanding and hostility'. The same could apply to Gandhi, Einstein and especially Akhenaten as well.
Akhnaten was first performed in England at the English National Opera, London, in June 1985 and successfully revived two years later, confirming the popularity of Glass's music and his subject matter. The action in ancient Egypt proceeds chronologically, but it was taken out of time by Orientalist touches in the production. As Akhenaten, Nefertiti and the rest sang their parts, extras in modern Islamic dress played peasants winnowing corn or making bricks, never leaving the stage. One of the implications is that Akhenaten's story is for all time.
The opera opens at Thebes with the funeral of Amunhotep III, the mourning rituals sung in Egyptian derived from Budge's ubiquitous bilingual edition of The Egyptian Book of the Dead. It moves on to Akhenaten's coronation, and then to a scene at the palace window of appearances, where the tension in the love triangle between Tiye, Akhenaten and Nefertiti is explored. They sing (in Egyptian again) an excerpt from the 'hymn' to the Aten, which 'is a hymn of acceptance and resolve and, in spirit, announces a new era', according to Glass.24 The next act begins with Akhenaten's destruction of Amun's monuments. Scene 2 is entirely devoted to a love duet between Akhenaten and Nefertiti, sung in Egyptian: here the libretto uses the same ancient text that Jarman's script gave Akhenaten to recite over the mutilated body of Smenkhkare'. Glass, with his interest in the heterosexual love story, puts it back into the mouth of Nefertiti, as the original editor of the text suggested.25 The act ends with another setting of the 'hymn' to the Aten, this time juxtaposed with the Hebrew version of Psalm 104, its supposed analogue. The implication is that Akhenaten's monotheism is a precursor to Christianity. The final act begins with an idyllic scene of the king and queen en famille. with their daughters at home, but in the world outside all is not well. Akhenaten has almost psychotically withdrawn from the world and refuses to do anything about the political situation in the empire. His fall is now inevitable. The libretto conveys this with a setting of one of the Amarna letters, sung in the original Akkadian, telling of the fall of Egypt's foreign empire. Tutankhamun is made pharaoh, Akhenaten blinded, and Akhet-aten destroyed. The opera ends in the present at the devastated city, where tourists mill around taking photographs (and, in the London production, urinating on the ruins). Finally, Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Tiye appear amid the devastation, singing wordlessly, and at first apparently not knowing where they are.
From this resume, it might sound as if Glass's emphasis lies on the fragile and doomed quality of Akhenaten's idealism, but it seems to me that sexuality is an equally important theme. As in Jarman's screenplay, sexuality and the erotic tensions of relationships provide some of the motivation for Glass's operatic characters, though his heterosexual focus is very different. Glass removes Smenkhkare' from the opera in the same way as the gay writers sideline the royal women. Drama comes from conflicts within the relationships of Tiye, Akhenaten and Nefertiti instead of Smenkhkare', Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Glass puts this into the vocal writing. Akhenaten is sung by a counter-tenor, Nefertiti by a mezzo-soprano or contralto, and Tiye by a soprano. 'The voice crossings produce a purposely confusing effect, making it sometimes difficult for the listener to follow the separate parts', says Glass.21' In stagings of the opera, this was reinforced by Tiye literally coming between Akhenaten and Nefertiti at crucial moments.
The opera's sexual situations originate in Akhenaten's pathologised body. Relying once again on literal readings of the east Karnak colossi, productions of A/chnaten make the king a hermaphrodite, with female breasts and male genitals, and his body an object of display. In Act I, scene 2 of the opera, Akhenaten is ritually lustrated by the priests before being crowned. He is stripped naked to reveal his sexually ambiguous body. His nudity and hermaphroditism are only illusions, however. In the London and New York productions, the singer who played Akhenaten, Christopher Robson, wore an elaborate body-suit with certain attachments that took three hours to get into. It created a very convincing illusion