A Thousand Kisses Deep

Book of Longing somehow manages to be both exactly what you’d expect from a collaboration between Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen, and something startling and unanticipated.

On a stage with musicians and vocalists scattered about at random, in front of a backdrop that begins its life as a black-and-white tribute to de Stijl art and ends as something infinitely more haunting, Glass sits at a piano. He does not conduct, nor does he recite any of the poetry he interprets. He leaves that to the vocalists and, occasionally, the cracked and leathery voice of Cohen himself.

“I swam like a swan, I sank like a rock,” Cohen begins, just before the production’s flutist plays with both urgency and melancholy.

The piece as a whole is a holistic tribute to Cohen as an artist; while Glass arranged all of the music, it’s Cohen’s words and artwork that take command. Behind the players, the backdrop displays several pieces of Cohen’s drawings and paintings, surrounding a digital screen that interposes other pieces of Cohen’s art with the music. “I had no gift for spiritual matters,” one of the poems claims. Hard to believe — Glass’s interpretations are as celestial as it gets.

Four vocalists alternate between solos and harmonies; often all four will harmonize dramatically on a given piece. Such harmony stands in stark contrast with the stark and raw style that marks Cohen’s work. Occasionally the show is stopped briefly for a solo on the violin or the cello; at one point Glass gets up from his piano, walks across the stage, and sits in a high-backed chair, watching the soloist like part of the audience.

The performance is challenging at times, but always welcoming. By the end, the performance of “A Thousand Kisses Deep” even echoes Robert Frost, when Cohen admits, by way of the vocalists, that he has “miles to drive and promises to keep.”

The show begins as it ends, with Cohen’s voice, on a note of humility: “It’s merely a song, it’s merely a prayer. Thank you, teachers, thank you, everyone.”

Tonight is the last night to see Book of Longing, at 7 PM at the Elgin Theater.

“Something beautiful has emerged that is better than both of us.”

The sylvan decor of the Winter Garden Theater might serve as a great setting for a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its columns disguised as trees, and ivy hanging from the ceiling. This weekend, though, its stage was home to three comfortable chairs, two tables, and three luminaries.

Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen sat on stage for an hour Saturday afternoon for a conversation with New York Times art critic John Rockwell about Book of Longing, Glass’s interpretation of Cohen’s recently published poetry volume of the same name.

Both artists agreed that the pairing is more unlikely that it might seem at first. Cohen compared it to a bumblebee, which flies deftly despite the appearance that it isn’t aerodynamic at all. Glass used a different analogy.

“It’s as if you had the ingredients to make a pizza, and you ended up with a souffle,” he said.

“It’s like that iceberg that crashed into that museum,” Cohen said, referring to the new Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum. “There’s something beautiful about this catastrophe. Something beautiful has emerged that is better than both of us.”

Book of Longing completes its run tonight, Sunday June 3, at 7 PM in the Elgin Theater.

DAILY FESTIVAL ALERT !

Today is the last day to see the following events:

• Muhtadi International Drumming Festival (Queens Park)
• The Book of Longing by Philip Glass with Leonard Cohen poems
• Norman (The Film making genuis of Norman McLaren is brough to life through through dance, 4d projection and more)
• The Art of Jazz featuring an eclectic line up of jazz musicians
• John Rockwell discussing what a festival is

The First 24 hours

Most of the world’s more prominent festivals, Edinburgh & its Fringe and Spoleto included, started out as very small seedlings. A few events tied together by a core idea conceived and produced with little more than a scribble on a napkin and a handshake, and nurtured by a few passionate visionaries and lots of luck.

After spending 24 hours here, it’s clear that can never be said of Luminato—even if its future size will eventually dwarf the first. This is a powerful creativity initiative driven less by the enthusiasm of a few visionaries, although it does not lack for them, than by the collective passion of a great many.

It shows in the amount of quality happenings: the number of contributions from established performers and artists is more characteristic of an event with a long history than a rookie.

Over the past 24 hours we have seen and done all of the following, and we still didn’t get to even 1/10 of what was on offer:

• Eric Idle’s (of Monty Python fame) new  comedy,  Not the Messiah
• A conversation between Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen
• A robotic chair that, on its own with absolutely no human intervention, falls completely apart and then recreates itself by finding each individual piece
• Luke & The Apostles and Sylvia Tyson, both part of the original ’67 Summer of Love Toronto music scene, singing some of the flashback favorites
• A brilliant interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s poems and never before publicly viewed artwork by Philip Glass
• Partied at the opening of the Daniel Libeskind-designed addition to Royal Ontario Museum, the Lee-Chin Crystal
• Heard Chantal Kreviazuk  sing at a relatively intimate outdoor venue

Stay tuned as we post details and reviews of these events.