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The CIVIL warS (Philip Glass and others) Cologne 1984
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down
- Composer: Philip Glass, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and others
- Libretto: Robert Wilson Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Cologne, Germany
- Recorded: 1984
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: unknown
- Conductor:
- Orchestra:
- Stage Director: Robert Wilson
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Date Published: 1987
- Format: Unknown
- Quality Video: 2 Audio:3
- Subtitles: yessubs, desubs, gensubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
The CIVIL warS: a tree is best measured when it is down is an opera created in the early 1980s by director Robert Wilson to music by Philip Glass, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and others. The vast five-act work has never been performed whole.
Originally, The Civil Wars was conceived as a single daylong piece of music theatre to accompany the 1984 Summer Olympics. Six composers from six countries were to compose sections of Wilson’s text inspired by the American Civil War. After initial premieres in their countries of origin, the six parts were to be fused in one epic performance in Los Angeles during the games, a parallel to the internationalist ideals of the Olympic movement.
The premiere of the full work was cancelled when funding failed to materialize (despite the Olympic Committee’s offer of matching funds) and deadlines were not met. But four of the six sections had full productions under Wilson’s direction in Minneapolis, Rome, Rotterdam and Cologne, with workshop productions of the other two sections in Tokyo and Marseille.