Steve Reich’s multimedia opera in three acts The Cave is based on a libretto by Beryl Korot, a video artist and the composer’s partner, and was first performed in 1993 at the Wiener Festwochen. The title refers to the Cave of Patriarchs in Hebron, which is a holy site for three of the world’s major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The composer used this religious meeting point as an opportunity to juxtapose the ideas of Israelis, Palestinians and Americans.

Steve Reich had long viewed the operatic form as an anachronism and turned down commissions to compose one. However, he changed his mind while working on the composition Different Trains for the Kronos Quartet. He realized that the action on stage could take the form of a theatre of ideas, i.e. documentary footage of speakers expressing ideas accompanied by live music which melodically duplicates them. By working with the melody of speech, Reich is continuing in the tradition established by Leoš Janáček with his speech melodies. The model for the musical side of the opera was Kurt Weill, in particular through his focus on ordinary people and a certain “makeshift” quality to the instrumentation. One of Reich’s main demands is that music should reflect the place and time in which it originated and, as far as possible, should not be boring. Without a doubt, The Cave is one of the most outstanding operas from the turn of the 21st century. A five-channel video is accompanied by a chamber ensemble, with the players also clapping rhythmically and tapping on computer keyboards.

Martin Flašar