Which opera has more acts, Einstein on the Beach or Owen Wingrave?
Einstein on the Beach Einstein on the Beach is an opera in four acts (framed and connected by five "knee plays" or intermezzos), composed by Philip Glass and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson. The opera eschews traditional narrative in favor of a formalist approach based on structured spaces laid out by Wilson in a series of storyboards. The music was written "in the spring, summer and fall of 1975." 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. The score was begun in the spring of 1975 and completed by the following November, and those drawings were before me all the time." The premiere took place on July 25, 1976, at the Avignon Festival in France. The opera contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs. 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.
Blennerhassett (opera) Blennerhassett is a brief radio opera in one act by American composer Vittorio Giannini with a libretto by Phillip Roll and Norman Corwin. It was commissioned by CBS Radio as part of the Columbia Composers Commission, following the success of Giannini's earlier radio opera "Beauty and the Beast". It received its premiere in a radio broadcast on 2 November 1939. "Blennerhassett" was subsequently performed in several staged and concert productions, including a 1991 semi-staged concert performance in New York City by American Chamber Opera. A performance of the opera generally lasts less than thirty minutes, although the 1991 production added a 10-minute prelude set in a radio studio which reenacted the pre-broadcast preparation for the original premiere.