Philip Glass Ensemble with Linda Ronstadt

1000 Airplanes on the Roof (1989) ...

A one act science fiction chamber opera by Philip Glass featuring vocals by Linda Ronstadt ... Commissioned by The Donau Festival Niederösterreich, The American Music Theater Festival, Philadelphia and by Berlin, Cultural City of Europe - 1988. World Premiere on July 15, 1988 at the Vienna International Airport in Hangar #3.

1000 Airplanes On The Roof ...

For one thing, it contains more chord changes than the usual Glass stage or work. Another reason is that this is the last score Glass recorded exclusively with electric keyboards and woodwinds. The composer blends his numerous motifs into one galactic "Grey Cloud Over New York," rendered without a moment's hesitation by PGE vets Martin Goldray,Jack Kripl, Richard Peck, and Jon Gibson. They immediately reprise the nervous title overture into the relaxed schmaltz of "A Normal Man Running." With the sinister voice sampling in "Labyrinth" as a lone reminder that this is a piece for the stage, this it's one of Glass' superior stand-alone works. allmusic.com

Girlfriend ...

The Encounter ...

Red Note Ensemble ...clip from 1000 Airplanes (performed in the Concorde hangar at Museum of Flight, East Fortune, Scotland) ...

• July 15, 1988, saw the world premiere of a radical new form of music theatre at the Vienna International Airport Hangar #3. Throughout its subsequent North American tour, 1000 Airplanes on the Roof has astonished audiences and sent critics scrambling for new descriptive vocabulary.
Michael Walsh (Time) called it "part Freud, part Kafka, and part Steven Spielberg" and declared that "operatic design may never again be the same." Peter Goodman (New York Newsday) said, "the powerfully hallucinogenic musical monodrama ... is a child of the '80s in every way." Michele May (Potomac News) called it "a light show, a ballet, a spoken opera, an art exhibit, a lesson in Zen. Above all, it is a totally innovative entertainment form."

1000 Airplanes recreates the original production with color photographs of Jerome Sirlin's holographic set projections accompanied by David Henry Hwang's compelling script. It is the story of "M.," a New Yorker who is apparently abducted by aliens, probed and questioned, then returned to Earth and told to forget the event. The ambiguity of M.'s experience - was it real or hallucinated? - is never fully resolved; it is a parable on contemporary's man's search for identity in a bewildering world. Philip Glass, David Henry Hwang and Jerome Sirlin stage a vivid, intense journey through M.'s world - inner and outer - which challenges our very notions of reality and sanity. We experience the full force of M.'s dilemma: no place could be as alien as the world has become... glasspages.org ...