Einstein on the Beach is an opera in four acts composed by Philip Glass with libretto in collaboration with Robert Wilson, who also designed and directed early productions.

[2][3] The opera eschews traditional narrative in favor of a formalist approach based on structured spaces laid out by Wilson in a series of storyboards which are framed and connected by five "knee plays" or intermezzos.

"[6] Glass recounts the collaborative process: "I put [Wilson’s notebook of sketches] on the piano and composed each section like a portrait of the drawing before me.

[8] It is Glass's first and longest opera score, taking approximately five hours in full performance without intermission; given the length, the audience is permitted to enter and leave as desired.

These three operas were described by Glass as portraits of people whose personal vision transformed the thinking of their times through the power of ideas rather than by military force.

[8] Glass and Wilson first met to discuss the prospects of a collaborative work, and decided on an opera of between four and five hours in length based around a historical persona.

[8][13] Lucinda Childs, Robert Wilson, pupil Sheryl S. Sutton, and Samuel M. Johnson filled the primary characters.

A one-hour documentary about this production appeared on public television, titled Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera.

The New York Times wrote about his performance, "And Tim Fain, the violinist, gave the solo passages in the second, fourth and fifth 'Knee Plays' and in the climactic, swirling 'Spaceship Interior' scene an electrifying, virtuosic workout."

[16] The team that had organized the New York City Opera production put together another group to remount Einstein, under the management of Pomegranate Arts.

Grammy Award-nominated violinist Jennifer Koh played the role of Einstein in the preview and alternated with Antoine Silverman for the subsequent tour.

The performers in the 2012 production included members of the Lucinda Childs Dance Company: Ty Boomershine, Vincent McCloskey, Matthew Pardo, Patrick O'Neill, Stuart Singer, Lonnie Poupard, Caitlin Scranton, Sharon Milanese, Katie Dorn, Katherine Helen Fisher, Anne Lewis, Shakirah Stewart, and Sarah Hillmon.

The chorus for this revival was composed of sopranos Michèle Eaton, Melanie Russell, Lindsay Kesselman; altos Hai-Ting Chinn, Solange Merdinian, Kate Maroney; tenors John Kawa, Philip Anderson, Tomas Cruz; and basses Greg Purnhagen, Joe Damon Chappel, and Jason Charles Walker.

The official tour began on March 16, 2012 after a single preview the previous evening with the premiere at the Opéra Berlioz in Montpellier, France.

This was followed by performances at the Teatro Valli in Reggio Emilia, Italy; the Barbican Centre, London; the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto; the Brooklyn Academy of Music Brooklyn, New York; Zellerbach Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, California; the Teatro del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City: in 2013, at Het Muziektheater/De Nederlandse Opera, Amsterdam;[17] Hong Kong; Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia;[18] Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles: and, in 2014 there were performances in Paris and Berlin.

[25] From the beginning of Glass and Wilson's collaboration, they insisted on portraying the icon purely as a historical figure, in the absence of a storyline attached to his image.

[27] Propelling idea of "non-plot" within Einstein on the Beach, its libretto employs solfège syllables, numbers, and short sections of poetry.

In an interview, Glass comments that he originally intended for his audience to construct personal connections with Einstein as a character and with the music that he assigns to the icon.

[2] While the "Knee Plays" helped to create the necessary time to change the scenery of Wilson's seven sets, these interludes also served a musical function.

This was released by Philip Glass's personal label Orange Mountain Music in early September 2012, as a 77-minute highlights CD, accompanied by the Changing Image of Opera documentary on DVD.

A shortened version of "I Feel the Earth Move", along with three other pieces from the opera, were chosen to appear on the Philip Glass album Songs from the Trilogy.