Ein(Stein) on the Beach (in Egypt): ‘Syncopated Time’ and the Formation of a ‘Continuous Present’ in Philip Glass’ Akhnaten

Abstract

In her 1935 lecture Plays, Gertrude Stein identifies a problem at the heart of the theatrical experience, that “your emotion concerning [the] play is always either behind or ahead of the play at which you are looking and to which you are listening” (Stein 58), creating an emotive and cognitive asynchronicity between the audience and the work, which she terms “syncopated time” (Stein 58). At the heart of this disconnect is her observation that “plays are either read or heard or seen” (Stein 59); the audience’s difficulty navigating this trialectic relationship is largely responsible for their desyncing from the emotional time-sense of the work. As the theatrical medium involving perhaps the most complex interplay of reading, hearing, and seeing, opera is an excellent subject for the application of Stein’s theories.
 
 This paper applies Stein’s questions of cognitive perception and emotional time to Akhnaten, Philip Glass’ third opera (which recently received its Metropolitan Opera premiere), in order to explore how the work navigates the problems which Stein identifies. This paper will argue that Glass’ iterative and ‘minimalist’ compositional style creates a synthesis of reading, hearing, and seeing to create a ‘continuous present,’ allowing the audience to remain in emotive and cognitive synchronicity with the work, and thus preventing them from falling into ‘syncopated time.’ In this way, contemporary opera offers novel approaches to the performative relationship between a work and its audience.
 Works Cited
 Stein, Gertrude. “Plays.” Writings and Lectures 1911-1945, edited by Patricia Meyerowitz, Peter Owen, 1967, pp. 58-81.