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Einstein on the Beach

This article is about the Philip Glass opera. For the Counting Crows song, see Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman).
Einstein on the Beach
Opera by Philip Glass
A 2012 production
Librettist
Premiere
July 25, 1976 (July 25, 1976)
Théâtre Municipal[1]
Avignon, France

Einstein on the Beach is an opera in four acts composed by Philip Glass and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson, who also collaborated with Glass on the work's libretto.[2][3] The opera eschews traditional narrative in favor of a formalist approach based on structured spaces laid out by Wilson in a series of storyboards which are framed and connected by five "knee plays" or intermezzos.[4] The music was written "in the spring, summer and fall of 1975."[5] Glass recounts the collaborative process: "I put [Wilson’s notebook of sketches] on the piano and composed each section like a portrait of the drawing before me. The score was begun in the spring of 1975 and completed by the following November, and those drawings were before me all the time."[6]

The opera's premiere occurred on July 25, 1976, at the Théâtre Municipal in Avignon, France, as part of the Avignon Festival. The opera contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs.[7] It is Glass's first and longest opera score, taking approximately five hours in full performance without intermission; given the length, the audience is permitted to enter and leave as desired.[7]

The work became the first in Glass's thematically related Portrait Trilogy, along with Satyagraha (1979), and Akhnaten (1983). These three operas were described by Glass as portraits of people whose personal vision transformed the thinking of their times through the power of ideas rather than by military force.[7]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference premavig was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Glass, Philip; Jones, Robert T (1995). Music by Philip Glass. Da Capo Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-306-80636-0. OCLC 477227754.
  3. ^ Griffel, Margaret Ross (2013). Operas in English: A Dictionary. Vol. 1. Scarecrow Press. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-8108-8272-0. OCLC 1248771681.
  4. ^ "Stanford Presidential Lectures in the Humanities and Arts". Stanford University Libraries. 2008. Retrieved 2012-04-14.
  5. ^ Glass, Philip (1978). "Notes: Einstein on the Beach". Performing Arts Journal. 2 (3): 63–70. doi:10.2307/3245363. ISSN 0735-8393. JSTOR 3245363. S2CID 194880860.
  6. ^ Shyer, Laurence (1989). Robert Wilson and His Collaborators. Theatre Communications Group. p. 220. ISBN 9780930452964. Retrieved 14 April 2010.
  7. ^ a b c "Dunvagen Music Publishers, Einstein on the Beach (Recording)". Philipglass.com. Nonesuch Records. 1993. Retrieved 2010-03-01.

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