The composer argued that it had been set to music too many times. His collaborators insisted otherwise. One of the reasons I aligned myself with Jim and Kusumita is I wanted professionals, people who have spent their lives studying these texts and had been involved in the debates over ecumenicalism. I don't know whose toes are there to be treaded on. I was not interested in that.
All religions agree about kindness and compassion.
The trio met every other week for a year to polish the libretto. An hour after the Brooklyn symposium, audience members headed downstairs for the performance and found the house lights not fully dimmed, so they could follow line by line through the librettos that are distributed free at Glass' insistence. You can't talk about popularity with a work of this kind, but the general acceptance of the piece in the concert hall has surprised me. It's a piece that has become strangely popular. Some of those guys . . . seem a little touchy.