The two men were both in their sixties then, and Cohen, a failed monk who had returned to secular life, agreed to work on a stage production that was part chamber opera and part cabaret, interjected with the voice of Cohen reading out his own poems.
The result was Book of Longing, a Glass x Cohen crossover that premiered in Toronto, Canada, in 2007.
Given the combined clout of the two music legends, there was a great deal of interest in the new work: critics were mostly won over by Cohen’s fiery, unforgiving appraisal of his younger self, the pathos of being over the hill (the prologue is titled “I Can’t Make the Hills”) and the haunting sounds that Glass conjured simpatico.
Some, however, complained that the whole collaboration had been weighed down by, as The Guardian put it, a tone of “perpetual disappointment”.
Three women very much in their prime are bringing this work to Hong Kong this month: conductor Vivian Ip Wing-wun, violinist Nina Wong Sin-i, Ip’s partner in their newly established Anima Ensemble, and director Mo Lai Yan-chi, best known for her 2023 film Band Four.
Just a couple of days before Lai walked the red carpet at the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards – Band Four had four nominations and won best original film score – I asked her why she was drawn to a work created by two men in a very different stage of their lives.
“I am a huge Cohen fan,” says Lai. “He has such a down-to-earth voice. His words are so relatable. I am fascinated by why he was drawn to Zen temple life: he just felt the world and his life did not make any sense.
“That feeling is very much how a lot of people feel in Hong Kong today. So let’s try and understand what it is like to live in confusion through Cohen’s words.”
Lai, who is also an actress, scriptwriter and theatre director, notes how the poems reveal very different aspects of Cohen.
“When Cohen read them out himself, he was confronting his own desires,” she says. “He had multiple identities and longings. And he was also an artist who could not be pinned down to just one realm. So having four singers in the production is a way to reveal his different personas.”
The Hong Kong production, accompanied by eight musicians from the Anima Ensemble, will feature soprano Athene Mok Tsz-wai, mezzo-soprano Samantha Chong Ying-zing, tenor David Quah, baritone Caleb Woo Wing-ching as well as movement artist Alysa Leung Hoi-yee – some of Cohen’s artworks will be presented through gestures while the others are projected.
A total of 22 poems will be included in the 100-minute production at The Box, the large black box theatre at Freespace.
Ip, who teaches orchestral and choral conducting at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and who is associate conductor of the Hong Kong Sinfonietta for the 2023/2024 season, says she is drawn to unusual, cross-disciplinary collaborations and that was why she and Wong set up Anima Ensemble in 2023 – to bring more contemporary chamber operas or other works that combine music and theatre to Hong Kong.
“We named the ensemble after the psychoanalytical term for unconscious, female power,” says Wong. “Book of Longing is not about sex or the feelings of just one sex. It is about facing our desires in an honest way – and I think music can help people do that.”
The Book of Longing – A Musical Theatre, co-presented by Anima Ensemble and Bel Canto Singers, The Box, Freespace, West Kowloon Cultural District, May 10-11, 8pm, May 12, 2:30pm. Tickets are available at art-mate.net.
