Einstein At the Beach vs. Baby Einstein
Yesterday the LA Times featured a review of “Einstein at the Beach,” an opera composed by Philip Glass. The show is the first in a Glass Trilogy of operas about men who changed the world through the power of their ideas, “Einstein”’s sub-text is science. The opera is non-narrative in form, and the producer has two options: to reproduce the original Robert Wilson production (which exists on videotape), or to create a new series of stage and dance pictures based on themes relating to the life of Albert Einstein.
The paper gave a glowing review to a new music series on LA’s westside, called Jacaranda, which concluded its first concert of the season at First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica with excerpts from the groundbreaking opera that Glass conceived with director Robert Wilson in 1976. The neat thing is that Glass offers the option of replacing the women’s voices at the end with a children’s chorus and that is what Jacaranda did. Very cool! Read more about the Jacaranda opera production children and Philip Glass‘ work.
In reporting this lovely story of live music and children getting involved with opera, they couldn’t resist a tongue in cheek reference to the breaking news that the Walt Disney Company is offering refunds to parents who have purchased Baby Einstein DVDs, stating “So ‘Baby Einstein’ won’t make your kids smarter after all. Last week, the Walt Disney Co. confessed that plopping kids in front of its video does not count as instant education and offered to refund gullible parents their money.”
Singing along to Einstein At The Beach sounds like a lot more fun then a rote memorization “learning video”!
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