Walk in and out
An opera of 5 hours, too long to stay focused? Well, that is why you are allowed to walk in and out. That is the case with Einstein on the beach, created by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson in 1976. Einstein prepared the way for much of what has happened in music theater since its premiere.
Glass and Wilson decided to create an opera based around a historical persona. Einstein was selected after they could not agree upon Charlie Chaplin or Adolf Hitler. Albert Einstein was the eventual compromise. The work is one out of serie of three where Glass portraits people whose personal vision transformed the thinking of their times through the power of ideas rather than by military force.
Although i appreciate minimal music for its capability to slow down time, 5 hours is a lot to handle. The little piece I like a lot is the music within the first of the opera's "Knee Plays" which features repeated numbers accompanied by an electric organ. Glass states that these numbers and solfège syllables were used as placeholders for texts by the singers to memorize their parts, and were kept instead of replacing them with texts. This numerical repetition offers an interpretation as a reference to the mathematical and scientific breakthroughs made by Einstein himself.
Hypnotizing!
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