Einstein on the Beach: Opera Beyond Drama

ISBN-13: 9781032082608 / Angielski / Miękka / 2021 / 350 str.

Jelena Novak; John Richardson

Opis

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.

Spis treści

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

O autorze

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).