aworks :: "new" american classical music

Baby Einstein on the Beach (2013). Philip Glass & Brooklyn Academy of Music

Via Tyler Cowen, I'd pay to see this:

Einstein on the Beach (1975). Philip Glass #figurative

From watching Einstein on the Beach:

One can’t really figure out much about Einstein or his works except that perhaps he loved trains and paper planes, he played the violin, and his works has something to do with nuclear bomb.

Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass #4.5hours #einstein #noregrets

I made it to the opera in Berkeley tonight. I was impressed how the composer sympathetically conveys the experience of the President as he majestically gets off a long plane ride from the US to China. Oh wait, that's the other canonical late 20th Century American opera.

Ok, back to Einstein on the Beach. I can't decide if it was crazy, crazy good, or the whole experience was just a dream. Probably all three. Seeing is believing, in this case.

While the opera conveys next to nothing about Albert Einstein, it's definitiely a consciousness revolution take on the first half of the 20th Century. With hindsight, 1900-1950 should be classified as crazy. So those 1930s-born creatives, Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, and Lucinda Childs, filtered that modern atomic era through a 60s/70s aesthetic. Call it a "double crazy."

I look forward to a future production, by younger artists, to see if the work can escape its creative context.

Doctor Atomic, by John Adams, in a way, covers the same subject, except that Adams is a baby boomer rather than from the Silent Generation (e.g. Colin Powell, Walter Mondale, Woody Allen, Martin Luther King, Jr., ElizabethTaylor, Elvis Presley as well as Glass/Wilson/Childs). That Adams opera probably won't be a canonic work, despite some early enthusiasm on my part.

Einstein's 4.5 hours was long but it was like a plane ride in that after a couple hours, the momentum started to accumulate and before I knew it, we were on our final, crazy, descent. Similarly, I didn't feel like climbing over my seat mates given the opera had no formal intermission (for a 4.5 hour production!).

In general, the flight/opera was smooth although I found it hard to hear, in the balcony anyway, the charming and perplexing text at the beginning and end e.g.:

It could be a balloon. It could be Frankie. It could be very fresh and clean. All these are the days, my friends, and these are the days, my friends. 

Plot spoiler here. 

And the work, although dramatic, didn't have the live physical impact of say, Music in Twelve Parts and Koyaanisqatsi. Still, a memorable show.

Personal note: after choosing family over art last night, I had to choose art over sports tonight. I missed the entire Giants World Series game since the start times of the opera and the game were, for some reason, synchronized.

Although I closely follow the San Francisco Giants, I was a boyhood fan of the Detroit Tigers and I may ultimately regret saying this, but I hope the Tigers win on Sunday. The spouse and I are going to the matinee of Einstein on the Beach tomorrow afternoon so a loss would let me watch what could be the final game on Monday.

Go Giants (sooner or later) and go Philip Glass...

 

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I've waited two years since the announcement to see Einstein on the Beach tonight in Berkeley. To prepare, I spent much of the summer listening over and over and over to the (now) three recordings.

Alas, today, instead, I helped an elderly loved one move from assisted living to a memory care residence. No regrets...

Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass #4.5hours #einstein

Anthony Tommasini reviews Einstein on the Beach, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music:

...exhilarating revival...compelling lead performers...nonsensical yet alluring text...calming and sweetly mystical...exuberant and crazed... suited to current musical politics and social culture...the brilliant violinist Jennifer Koh...original, visionary and generous work...moments of ominous intensity...two trial scenes are highlights...dazzling choreography... if it were trimmed...

 

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Q2 has a stream of the 1984 recording of Einstein on the Beach, about to be released by Orange Mountain Music:

Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass #4.5hours #einstein

Einstein? (andreas_fischler)

Instructions to improve your experience at all 4.5 hours of Einstein on the Beach:

Act One opens with Train (23 minutes). Train sets the tone and pace of the show, as well as introduces the first musical theme. You’ll have a better idea after watching this scene of how your patience for EINSTEIN will hold up.

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Cover of Philip Glass: Einstein on the Beach

Interesting notes from John Rockwell's NY Times piece about Einstein on the Beach:

• "There is talk of extending performances, maybe even into 2014, with cities like Melbourne, Australia; Los Angeles; Buenos Aires; and São Paulo, Brazil, under discussion, and perhaps Bahrain, Berlin and Paris."
• 'For those of us steeped in Lower Manhattan performing arts of the ’70s, “Einstein” represented in part a grand (and it turned out, more or less final) flowering of the warmly human collegiality of that time and place.'
• 'Although the instrumentation of the Glass Ensemble remains the same, the keyboards have grown in sophistication, replacing the endearing but reedy sounds of the original Farfisa electric organs. “We’ve sampled a Farfisa organ,” Mr. Glass said. “They exist as a sample.”'
•  "And there are plans to film the entire piece, with Mr. Wilson’s directorial involvement, in both 2-D and 3-D."
• 'But this is likely to be the final revival of “Einstein on the Beach” directly overseen by these two men. It is hard to see how it could be revived again without Mr. Wilson’s fastidious attention to detail.'

 

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Exploring the Information Ecology on seeing Einstein in Toronto:

Some clunkers? Yes. The judge’s speech (seems dated) the toy spaceship (awkward), and the moving bar of white light (boring, pretentious really). However, all is forgiven, the rest was glorious.

Einstein on the Beach (1976). Philip Glass /@einsteinbeach/

Brooklyn Academy of Music:

Starting at sunset tonight (8pm) we will tweet the entire libretto from the handle @EinsteinBeach. Tweets will be sent out every 15 minutes. We encourage you to follow along, retweet your favorite lines, and comment using the hashtag #Einstein2012. ...

All these are the days my friends and these are the days my friends...