Einstein on the Beach

Einstein on the Beach is a four-act opera created by Robert Wilson, who directed and designed it, with music by Philip Glass. Instead of following a traditional story, the opera uses a formalist structure based on Wilson’s storyboards, which define specific spatial arrangements. These acts are linked by five short intermezzos called “knee plays.” The score is Glass’s first opera and also his longest, running about five hours without an intermission; audience members are free to enter and leave whenever they like.

The work premiered on July 25, 1976, at the Théâtre Municipal in Avignon, France, during the Avignon Festival. Its texts were contributed by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson, and Lucinda Childs. Einstein on the Beach is the first opera in Glass’s Portrait Trilogy, followed by Satyagraha (1979) and Akhnaten (1983). Glass described these three works as portraits of individuals whose ideas reshaped their eras through intellectual power rather than military force.

Glass and Wilson first met to discuss a collaboration, settling on an opera lasting four to five hours centered on a historical figure. Wilson initially suggested Charlie Chaplin or Adolf Hitler, both of whom Glass rejected. Glass proposed Mahatma Gandhi (later the subject of Satyagraha), and they compromised on Albert Einstein. The title likely references Nevil Shute’s apocalyptic novel On the Beach; the opera was originally called Einstein on the Beach on Wall Street but was later shortened, though neither creator recalls when or why. Glass composed the music in 1975 while in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, working from Wilson’s notebook of sketches: “I put [the notebook] 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.”

The premiere was performed by the Philip Glass Ensemble and presented by the Byrd Hoffmann Foundation. That summer, the opera also traveled to Hamburg, Paris, Belgrade, Venice, Brussels, and Rotterdam. In November 1976, the Byrd Hoffman Foundation, in cooperation with the Metropolitan Opera, held two performances. Primary roles were filled by Lucinda Childs, Robert Wilson, Sheryl S. Sutton, and Samuel M. Johnson, all of whom returned for a 1984 revival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). A one-hour documentary about that production, *Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera*, aired on public television and was later shown at the Morgan Library & Museum during its 2012 exhibition “Robert Wilson/Philip Glass: Einstein on the Beach.” In 1988, director Achim Freyer, who had staged the world premiere of Glass’s *Akhnaten* in Stuttgart in 1984, designed a highly abstract reworked version for the Stuttgart State Opera, with new spoken texts from the early 20th century and conducted by Michael Riesman.

In 1992, International Production Associates mounted a revival with Wilson, Glass, and Childs, restaged at the McCarter Theatre at Princeton University and later touring to Frankfurt, Melbourne, Barcelona, Madrid, Tokyo, BAM, and Paris. In 2007, Carnegie Hall presented a concert version with violinist Tim Fain as soloist; the *New York Times* praised his “electrifying, virtuosic workout” in the solo passages of the second, fourth, and fifth knee plays and the “Spaceship Interior” scene. Fain continues to tour with Glass in duo recitals, always including the solo from “Knee Play 2.”

A revival with all original collaborators was commissioned by the New York City Opera to open its 2009–10 season, but was canceled after General Manager designate Gerard Mortier withdrew. The team behind that effort then formed a new group under Pomegranate Arts. After a month of rehearsals overseen by Glass, Wilson, and Childs, the first performance in 20 years took place on January 20, 2012, at the Power Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, with two additional performances that weekend. Kate Moran and Helga Davis replaced Childs and Sutton in their roles. Violinist Jennifer Koh (a Grammy nominee) played Einstein in the preview, alternating with Antoine Silverman on the subsequent tour. The instrumentalists and solfege soprano were current members of the Philip Glass Ensemble, without Glass himself. The 2012 cast also included dancers from the Lucinda Childs Dance Company: Ty Boomershine, Vincent McCloskey, Matthew Pardo, Patrick O’Neill, Stuart Singer, Lonnie Poupard, Caitlin Scranton, Sharon Milanese, Katie Dorn, Katherine Helen Fisher, Anne Lewis, Shakirah Stewart, and Sarah Hillmon. The chorus comprised sopranos Michèle Eaton, Melanie Russell, Lindsay Kesselman; altos Hai-Ting Chinn, Solange Merdinian, Kate Maroney; tenors John Kawa, Philip Anderson, Tomas Cruz; and basses Greg Purnhagen, Joe D.