🎬 Waiting for the Barbarians

About

Waiting for the Barbarians is an opera by American minimalist composer Philip Glass, based on J.M. Coetzee's 1980 novel of the same name. It follows a colonial magistrate torn by conscience as an occupying force commits atrocities around him. The opera premiered in 2005 and pairs Glass's characteristic repetitive musical language with a politically charged story about power and complicity.