ABSTRACT
The show was sold out long before Einstein on the Beach premiered at the Avignon Festival in 1976 and received a thunderous standing ovation. The production embarked on its six-country European tour, which included the hugely prestigious Autumn Festival in Paris, a showcase for avant-garde work. Some 30 performances later, all generating immense excitement, Einstein returned to New York, where it had been constructed and rehearsed thanks to the sponsorship of the French Ministry of Culture; most probably the work would have never seen the light of day without this financial and moral support. The memory of Einstein on the Beach as weird and wonderful was strong enough to inspire its revival in 1984 for the cutting-edge Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The idea of Einstein for an opera came from Wilson’s desire to work around a popular hero about whom everyone knew something.
