All at sea | 12 May 2012

Pharmaceutical considerations were uppermost in my mind as I made my way to the Barbican Hall for Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, a production which began touring in Michigan in January and ends in Hong Kong next March. I imagine that marijuana is probably the best preparation and accompaniment for seeing it, but that makes me feel merely giggly and stupid, so I took a modafinil, primarily intended for shift workers, insomniacs and examinees, to aid concentration and combat sleeplessness, clearly an indispensable medicament for opera critics too. But in this case it didn’t work.

Einstein, which lasts about four and a half hours, has no interval, so the audience was invited to come and go as it felt fit. For the first hour no one stirred — I don’t recall any opera audience being so quiet. Then a couple got up and went out for refreshment or relief, and a trickle began, which I joined after approximately two hours.