Glass: Akhnaten DVD (Metropolitan Opera)

The product information on the back of the Akhnaten DVD states that there are English subtitles, but the singing in Egyptian is not subtitled. I laughed when the singers started to sing in Egyptian and the subtitle onscreen was (singing in native language) – this seems condescending actually, and of course most languages are native – when we watch Das Rheingold, we hear the characters sing in a language which is native to Germany.
By not translating the sung text, the viewer misses out on lines such as 'Hail, bringer of the boat of Ra. Strong are thy sails in the wind as thou sailest over the Lake of Fire in the Underworld.' In the first scene there is much which reflects Ancient Egyptian culture, especially in relation to life and death, and that gets lost if we are ignorant of what the characters are singing; the experience of watching this opera is diminished.
Subtitles help opera be more accessible and the lack of them here just strikes me as unnecessarily esoteric and obscurantist.

Website easy to navigate, transaction straightforward, very pleased with a wonderful performance of Akhnaten!

We went to the opening night of this staging when it came to the London Coliseum, so it was fantastic to have something to remember it by and we really enjoyed reliving it.

I was lucky enough to see this production at the ENO in 2016. I was new to Philip Glass and unsure what to expect. It was an utterly absorbing spectacle. It is very rare that I will see the same production twice but I went back for the revival in 2019. I'm excited to see it on DVD and expect to revisit it many times.