A couple of days ago the blog aworks provided us with a link to a video stream of a performance of Philip Glass' opera "Einstein on the Beach" (1976). Last year I was lucky enough to attend an actual performance of this masterpiece of minimal music in New York City at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, based on this experience I am very happy to repost this link here.
It has to be said that "Einstein" should only be heard and seen life on stage. I guess this is the reason why Glass and his collaborator Robert Wilson refused to videotape the original performance for sale. The experience during the almost five hours the opera lasts is so strong and unique that no recording could ever convey it. Like Stravinsky's "Sacre du printemps" it seems to me quite boring when I listened to it on a CD at home. Stravinsky's "Sacre" needs to make you feel the resonances of the orchestra in your body, and Glass's "Einstein" needs to show you the dances on the stage together with the music. In fact, you can watch twenty minutes or so of "Einstein" without noticing any significant change in the music or the lyrics (more about the lyrics later). And yet, despite of the countless repetition, your hear the same piece of music every time it occurs a little bit different, charged with the experience of the last time you heard it. "Einstein" needs the big space (that is to say, the stage), in time as well as in actual space, to generate this overwhelming and almost indescribable feeling.
"Einstein" has no narration. There are roughly three parts, called "Train", "Trial", and "Spaceship", which are symbolized more or less by the name-giving objects. There are no lyrics - the chorus is singing numbers or solmisation syllables. In a world where opera usually tells a story, this is a revolutionary approach.
The opportunity to watch a performance of "Einstein" shouldn't be missed. In March it is staged in Berlin, in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.
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