Einstein on the Beach: Opera beyond Drama

Jelena Novak, John Richardson (Herausgeber)

Buch | Softcover

350 Seiten

2021
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-032-08260-8 (ISBN)

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Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s most celebrated collaboration, the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, had its première at the Avignon Festival in 1976. The book features essays from those that focus on the human scale and agencies involved in productions to the mechanical and post-human character of the opera’s expressive substance.

Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s most celebrated collaboration, the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, had its premiere at the Avignon Festival in 1976. During its initial European tour, Metropolitan Opera premiere, and revivals in 1984 and 1992, Einstein provoked opposed reactions from both audiences and critics. Today, Einstein is well on the way itself to becoming a canonized avant-garde work, and it is widely acknowledged as a profoundly significant moment in the history of opera or musical theater. Einstein created waves that for many years crashed against the shores of traditional thinking concerning the nature and creative potential of audiovisual expression. Reaching beyond opera, its influence was felt in audiovisual culture in general: in contemporary avant-garde music, performance art, avant-garde cinema, popular film, popular music, advertising, dance, theater, and many other expressive, commercial, and cultural spheres. Inspired by the 2012–2015 series of performances that re-contextualized this unique work as part of the present-day nexus of theoretical, political, and social concerns, the editors and contributors of this book take these new performances as a pretext for far-reaching interdisciplinary reflection and dialogue. Essays range from those that focus on the human scale and agencies involved in productions to the mechanical and post-human character of the opera’s expressive substance. A further valuable dimension is the inclusion of material taken from several recent interviews with creative collaborators Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, and Lucinda Childs, each of these sections comprising knee plays, or short intermezzo sections resembling those found in the opera Einstein on the Beach itself. The book additionally features a foreword written by the influential musicologist and cultural theorist Susan McClary and an interview with film and theater luminary Peter Greenaway, as well as a short chapter of reminiscences written by the singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega.

Jelena Novak is Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music at NOVA University of Lisbon. Her publications include Opera u doba medija (Opera in the Age of Media), Postopera: Reinventing the Voice-Body, and Operofilia. John Richardson is Professor of Musicology at the University of Turku in Finland. His publications include An Eye for Music: Popular Music and the Audiovisual Surreal, Singing Archaeology: Philip Glass’s Akhnaten, and The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics (eds. Richardson, Gorbman, and Vernallis).

Contents

List of figures viii

List of music examples x

Series editor preface xi

Foreword: music and culture in the wake of Einstein xiii

Contributors xvii

Acknowledgements xxiii

Introduction xxv

JOHN RICHARDSON AND JELENA NOVAK

Knee chapter 1

Paying attention to Einstein: Philip Glass interviewed by John Richardson 1

PART 1

Einstein on the shores of culture 13

1 Einstein on the radio 15

ROBERT FINK

2 Sous les pavés, la plage 49

JOHANNES BIRRINGER

3 Einstein on the Beach in Belgrade: a critical testimony 66

MIŠKO ŠUVAKOVIĆ

Knee chapter 2

Einstein on the Beach is not radical, it is classic: Robert Wilson interviewed by Bojan Djordjev 79

PART 2

From repetition to representation 87

4 Intuition and algorithm in Einstein on the Beach 89

KYLE GANN

5 “Only pictures to hear”: reading Einstein on the Beach through experimental theater 106

PWYLL AP SIÔN

6 Creating beauty in chaos: Robert Wilson’s visual authorship in Einstein on the Beach 125

AVRA SIDIROPOULOU

Knee chapter 3

Stay out of the way of Bob Wilson when he dances: Lucinda Childs interviewed by Jelena Novak 141

PART 3

Beyond drama: surfaces and agencies of performance 149

7 Heavenly bodies: the integral role of dance in Einstein on the Beach 151

LEAH G. WEINBERG

8 Anonymous voice, sound, indifference 174

ZEYNEP BULUT

Knee chapter 4

Artists recall and respond 195

Suzanne Vega, Under the influence – Philip Glass 195

Two Finnish composers reminisce: Juhani Nuorvala, Petri Kuljuntausta 198

Tom Johnson, Rehearsing Einstein on the Beach 203

Two steps forwards but three steps back, and then one step forwards again – Peter Greenaway interviewed by John Richardson 206

PART 4

Operatic machines and their ghosts 211

9 Leaving and re-entering: punctuating Einstein on the Beach 213

SANDER VAN MAAS

10 Historia Einsteinalium: from the beach to the church, via theater and “state bank” 231

JELENA NOVAK

Knee chapter 5

Critical excavations 253

Pieter T’Jonck, How democratic baroque came about in dance and Einstein on the Beach 253

Frits van der Waa, Einstein in the press 261

Appendix 1: Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach,storyboard drawings 271

Appendix 2: Einstein on the Beach, spoken texts 276

Bibliography 287

Index 301

Erscheinungsdatum	03.08.2021
Reihe/Serie	Ashgate Interdisciplinary Studies in Opera
Zusatzinfo	37 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	503 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik ► Klassik / Oper / Musical
ISBN-10	1-032-08260-7 / 1032082607
ISBN-13	978-1-032-08260-8 / 9781032082608
Zustand	Neuware