Einstein on the Beach / What Next?

Elliott Carter

Einstein on the Beach
Carnegie Hall; Thu 6

What Next?
Miller Theatre; Fri 7–Sun 9, Tue 11

New York City Opera’s recent production of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa, composed in 1958, rendered curious the work’s seeming disregard, since in some ways it still represents the status quo in contemporary American opera, nearly 50 years later. Among admirers of Vanessa’s aching lyricism and tortured melodrama, two works arriving in town this week might not register as operas at all—which is partly why the prospect of their airing seems so urgent.

Admittedly, of the many operas Philip Glass has now composed, Einstein on the Beach, his first, is by far the least conventional. Unveiled in 1976, it provided a scintillating minimalist score of some four hours and 40 minutes’ duration for a nonstop parade of nonnarrative texts and abstract tableaux by director Robert Wilson. In concert at Carnegie Hall, Glass and his ensemble will offer a compacted three-hour version, including—gasp!—an intermission.

Elliott Carter took on his first opera, What Next?, as a spry nonagenarian in 1997. The 45-minute piece takes place in the aftermath of an automobile accident: Six shell-shocked characters mouth a Beckett-like babble (provided by noted critic Paul Griffith) in lines as jagged as the presumed wreckage. Yet moments of breathtaking luminosity peek out amid the tangles and gnarls. New York first heard What Next? in a 2000 concert at Carnegie Hall; Miller Theatre’s production, directed by Christopher Alden, is its local stage premiere. The usual rush for weekend tickets might be mitigated by a special occasion: Tuesday 11 is Carter’s 99th birthday.

—Steve Smith