Robert Wilson (director)

Robert Wilson was born October 4, 1941, in Waco, Texas, the son of Loree Velma (née Hamilton) and D.M. Wilson, a lawyer. He had a difficult youth as the gay son of a conservative family. "When I was growing up, it was a sin to go to the theater. It was a sin if a woman wore pants. There was a prayer box in school, and if you saw someone sinning you could put their name in the prayer box, and on Fridays everyone would pray for those people whose names were in the prayer box." He was stuttering and taken to a local dance instructor called Bird "Baby" Hoffman, who helped him overcome his stutter. After attending local schools, he studied business administration at the University of Texas from 1959 to 1962. He moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 1963 to change fields, study art and architecture. At some point he went to Arizona to study architecture with Paolo Soleri at his desert complex. Wilson found himself drawn to the work of pioneering choreographers George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham, and Martha Graham, among others. He engaged in therapeutic theater work with brain-injured and disabled children in New York. He received a BFA in architecture from the Pratt Institute in 1965. He directed a "ballet for iron-lung patients where the participants moved a fluorescent streamer with their mouths while the janitor danced dressed as Miss America". During this period, he also attended lectures by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy (widow of László Moholy-Nagy), and studied painting with artist George McNeil. == Career ==

Theater and film in Amsterdam, 2013 In 1968, he founded an experimental performance company, the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds (named for the teacher who helped him manage a stutter while a teenager). With this company, he directed his first major works, beginning with 1969's The King of Spain and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud. In 1972 he performed and directed "Ka Mountain and Guardenia Terrace", commissioned by the Shiraz Arts Festival. It ran unscripted for six nights and seven days nonstop on a hilltop, merging time and space into a mystical continuum. He began to work in opera in the early 1970s, creating Einstein on the Beach with composer Philip Glass and choreographer Andy deGroat. This work brought the artists worldwide renown. Following Einstein, Wilson worked increasingly with major European theaters and opera houses. In 1970, Wilson and a group of collaborators, including choreographer Andy deGroat and the dancer and actor Sheryl Sutton, devised the "silent opera" Deafman Glance in Iowa City, where it premiered at the Center for New Performing Arts on December 15. The large cast of the premiere production of Deafman Glance included Raymond Andrews and Ana Mendieta. The show subsequently traveled to the Nancy Festival in France and to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It later opened in Paris, championed by the designer Pierre Cardin. In 1975, Wilson dissolved the Byrds and started to use professional actors. In 1986, the Pulitzer Prize jury unanimously selected the CIVIL warS for the drama prize, but the supervisory board rejected the choice and gave no drama award that year. In 1990 alone, Wilson created four new productions in four different West German cities: Shakespeare's King Lear in Frankfurt, Anton Chekhov's Swansong in Munich, an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando in West Berlin, and The Black Rider a collaboration by Wilson, Tom Waits, and William S. Burroughs, in Hamburg. In 1998, Wilson staged August Strindberg's A Dream Play, at Stockholms Stadsteater, Sweden. It later headlined festivals in Recklinghausen, Nice, Perth, Bonn, Moscow, New York, and London. In 2006 Wilson collaborated with filmmaker Katharina Otto-Bernstein on the documentary feature film "Absolute Wilson", chronicling his epic life, times, and creative genius; the film premiered in the Panorama section of Berlinale the same year and was later distributed by HBO and Studio Canal. In 2010 Wilson was working on a new stage musical with composer (and long-time collaborator) Tom Waits and the Irish playwright, Martin McDonagh. His theatrical production of John Cage's Lecture on Nothing, which was commissioned for a celebration of the Cage centenary at the 2012 Ruhrtriennale, had its U.S. premiere in Royce Hall, UCLA, by the Center for the Art of Performance. Wilson performed Lectures on Nothing in its Australian premiere at the 2019 Supersense festival at the Arts Centre Melbourne. In 2013 Wilson, in collaboration with Mikhail Baryshnikov and co-starring Willem Dafoe, developed The Old Woman, an adaptation of the work by the Russian author Daniil Kharms. The play premiered at MIF13, Manchester International Festival. Wilson wrote that he and Baryshnikov had discussed creating a play together for years, perhaps based on a Russian text. The final production included dance, light, singing, and bilingual monologue. From 1999, Wilson premiered nine theatrical works in Berlin. By contrast, as of 2013, his last commission in the United States was 21 years ago. Here two images from his La traviata at Musiktheater Linz (2015), created by photographers Christian Michelides (left) and Francisco Peralta Torrejón (right), with Violetta Valéry shortly before her death: La Traviata 3773 Michelides.jpg La traviata 9097-peralta.jpg As of 2010, he continued to direct revivals of his most celebrated productions, including The Black Rider in London, San Francisco, Sydney, Australia, and Los Angeles; The Temptation of St. Anthony in New York and Barcelona; Erwartung in Berlin; Madama Butterfly at the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow; and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Wilson also directed all Monteverdi operas for the opera houses of La Scala in Milan and the Palais Garnier in Paris. In 2017, Wilson created an opera with Anna Calvi titled "The Sandmann" based on the eponymous story by E.T.A. Hoffmann. The Sandman premiered on May 3, 2017, at the Ruhrfestspiele Festival, Recklinghausen, Germany and on May 20, 2017, at the Schauspielhaus Theater, Düsseldorf, Germany. In 2021 Wilson directed a revival of Shakespeare's The Tempest at the Ivan Vazov National Theatre in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2022 he directed UBU, a theatrical performance, premiered at Es Baluard Museu in Palma. In 2024, Wilson created an opera again with Anna Calvi titled "Moby Dick" based on the eponymous novel by Herman Melville. "Moby Dick" premiered on September 7, 2024, at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Germany. Visual art and design In addition to his work for the stage, Wilson created sculpture, drawings, and furniture designs. Exhibited in December 1976 at the Paula Cooper Gallery, Wilson's storyboards were described by one critic as "serial art, equivalent to the slow-motion tempo of [Wilson's] theatrical style. In drawing after drawing after drawing, a detail is proposed, analyzed, refined, redefined, moved through various positions." He won the Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Biennale for a sculptural installation. In 2004, Ali Hossaini offered Wilson a residency at the television channel LAB HD. Thereafter, Wilson, with producer Esther Gordon and later with Matthew Shattuck, produced dozens of high-definition videos known as the Voom Portraits. Collaborators on this well-received project included the composer Michael Galasso, the late artist and designer Eugene Tsai, fashion designer Kevin Santos, and lighting designer Urs Schönebaum. In addition to celebrity subjects, sitters have included royalty, animals, Nobel Prize winners, and hobos. in 2023 In 2011, Wilson designed Tapio Wirkkala Park, an art park dedicated to the Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala (1915–1985), situated in the Arabianranta district of Helsinki, Finland. His plans for the rectangular park feature a central square divided into nine equally sized fields separated by bushes. Each field will be installed with objects related to the home. For example, one unit will consist of a small fireplace surrounded by stones that serve as seating. The park will be lit by large, lightbox-style lamps build into the ground and by smaller ones modeled on ordinary floor lamps. In 2013 American pop singer Lady Gaga announced that she would collaborate with Wilson as part of her ARTPOP project. He subsequently designed the set for her 2013 MTV Video Music Awards performance. Wilson also suggested that Gaga pose for his Voom Portraits. The centerpiece of the residency was a room filled with objects from the artist's personal collection in New York, including African masks, a Shaker chair, ancient Chinese ceramics, shoes worn by Marlene Dietrich, and a photo of Wilson and Philip Glass taken in the early 1980s by Robert Mapplethorpe. == Personal life and death ==

Wilson lived in New York. As of 2000, he estimated that he "spends 10 days a year at his apartment in New York". For many years he was romantically involved with Andy de Groat, a dancer and choreographer with whom he collaborated in the 1970s. Wilson died from a short illness at his home in Water Mill, New York, on July 31, 2025, at the age of 83. == Style ==

Wilson is known for having pushed the boundaries of theater. His works are noted for their austere style, very slow movement, and often extreme scale in space or in time. The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin was a 12-hour performance, while KA MOUNTain and GUARDenia Terrace was staged on a mountaintop in Iran and lasted seven days. Language Language is one of the most important elements of theater and Robert Wilson felt at home with commanding it in many different ways. Wilson's impact on this part of theater alone is immense. Arthur Holmberg, professor of theater at Brandeis University, says that "In theatre, no one has dramatized the crisis of language with as much ferocious genius as Robert Wilson." Wilson made it evident in his work that whats and whys of language are terribly important and cannot be overlooked. Tom Waits, acclaimed songwriter and collaborator with Wilson, said this about Wilson's unique relationship with words: Words for Bob are like tacks on the kitchen floor in the dark of night and you're barefoot. So Bob clears a path he can walk through words without getting hurt. Bob changes the values and shapes of words. In some sense they take on more meaning; in some cases, less. Wilson directed three of Stein's works in the 1990s: Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (1992), Four Saints in Three Acts (1996), and Saints and Singing (1998). Wilson considered language and, down to its very ingredients, words, as a sort of "a social artifact". Props Wilson's interest in design extended to the props in his productions, which he designed and sometimes participated in constructing. Whether it was furniture, a light bulb, or a giant crocodile, Wilson treated each as a work of art in its own right. He demanded that a full-scale model of each prop be constructed before the final one was made, in order "to check proportion, balance, and visual relationships" on stage. == Exhibitions ==

, 2018 Extensive retrospectives of Wilson's efforts have been presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1991) and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1991). He presented installations at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1993), London's Clink Street Vaults (1995), Neue Nationalgalerie (2003), and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. His tribute to Isamu Noguchi was exhibited at the Seattle Art Museum and his Voom Portraits exhibition traveled to Hamburg, Milan, Miami, and Philadelphia. In 2013 he participated at the White House Biennial / Thessaloniki Biennale 4. He collaborated with artist Bettina WitteVeen on an exhibition space based on her photography book "Sacred Sister." The book consisted of photos of women that WitteVeen captured in Indonesia and Southeast Asia in 1995. The exhibition space was set up in 2003 at Art Basel Miami Beach, and was also composed of layers of autumn leaves on the floor of a studio. Wilson was represented exclusively and worldwide by RW Work, Ltd. (New York), and his gallerist in New York City was Paula Cooper Gallery. == The Watermill Center ==

In 1991 Wilson established The Watermill Center on the site of a former Western Union laboratory on the East End of Long Island, New York. Originally styled as "a laboratory for performance", The Watermill Center operates year-round artist residencies, public education programs, exhibitions, and performances. The center is situated within a campus of gardens and designed landscape, and contains numerous works of art collected by Wilson. == Europe Theatre Prize ==

In 1997 he was awarded the V Europe Theatre Prize, in Taormina, with the following motivation:The Jury of the fifth Europe Theatre Prize has unanimously awarded the Prize to Robert Wilson in recognition of his thirty years' work aimed at creating a personal reinvention of scenic art that has overturned the temporal dimension and retraced the spatial one. He refused to render a mere production of reality and offered an abstract or informal vision of the text and also redefined the roles, whenever possible, through global intervention in the creation of his performances where he was author, director, performer, scenographer and magic light designer. Architect by profession, the artist pursued an indisciplinary language that did not ignore the visual arts in enhancing the importance of the image and, restoring the support of music, he approached dance and simultaneously attempted to find a pure harmonious value in the spoken word, in an ideal tension towards a form of total theater. It has been said that his works can be considered part of a single opus in continual evolution that constitutes the synthesis. During his career Wilson has confronted himself with different genres and drawn them closer thanks to the conformity of language. He has executed classical works and specially written works and for this reasons he has stimulated the interest of eminent writers, such as William Burroughs and Heiner Müller establishing a particular bond with him. He has dedicated himself to teaching non theatrical literary works often adapted into monologs interpreted by eminent actors, such as Madeleine Renaud and Marianne Hoppe. He has ventured into the production of opera and ballet, he has created musicals sui generis in collaboration with illustrious emerging personalities, he has promoted performances especially with Christopher Knowles, he has directed spectacular fashion parades. His prolific activity as designer and visual artist can be seen in his paintings, sculptures, installations, graphic works, exhibitions. He was awarded the major prize at the Venice Biennale. Nothing new can be achieved without changing the conceptions of organization. He was a decisive promoter of coproduction of festivals since the '70s, of the creation of prototype-performances that could be translated in various nations with new casts, and also of the creation of serial works to be completed later in production studios. Thanks are due to him for the embrace between different nations, languages, styles and traditions. Even when using bigger and bigger and more and more international teams of collaborators Wilson has never renounced making his own imprint of perfectionist in a developing opera. He has to be accredited with the Watermill Centre, center of experimentation and training where his work as a teacher has helped him in retain an inexhaustible flow of fresh ideas from the contact with the young people. == Appraisals ==

Wilson was described by The New York Times as "[America]'s – or even the world's – foremost vanguard 'theater artist. Miroslava Kortenska wrote in 2015: Wilson "has developed as an avant-garde artist specifically in Europe amongst its modern quests, in its most significant cultural centers, galleries, museums, opera houses and theaters, and festivals". == Awards and honors ==

• 1971 and 1980 Guggenheim Fellowship awards • 1971 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Director for Deafman Glance • 1975 Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship • 1981 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship • 1986 Nomination for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama • 1990 The Mysteries and What's So Funny • 1993 Golden Lion for Sculpture from the Venice Biennale • 2005 Honorary doctorate from University of Toronto • 2009 Trophée des Arts Award, Alliance française • 2013 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Opera for Einstein on the Beach • 2013 Paez Medal of Art from VAEA == Works ==

• The King of Spain, 1969 • The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud, 1969 • Deafman Glance (film) (with Raymond Andrews), 1970 • KA MOUNTAIN AND GUARDenia TERRACE: a story about a family and some people changing, 1972 • The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin, 1973 • A Letter for Queen Victoria, 1974 • Einstein on the Beach (with Philip Glass), 1976 • I Was Sitting on My Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating (with Lucinda Childs), 1977 • Death Destruction & Detroit, 1979 • Edison (play), 1979 • The Golden Windows (Die Goldenen Fenster), 1979 • Dialogue/Curious George (play), 1980 • Stations (play), 1982 • Medea (opera with Gavin Bryars), Lyon 1984 • The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down, 1984 • Shakespeare's King Lear, 1985 • Heiner Müller's Hamletmachine, 1986 • Euripides' Alcestis, 1986–1987 • Death Destruction & Detroit II, 1987 • Heiner Müller's '''', 1987 • Le martyre de Saint Sébastien, 1988 • Orlando (adapted by Darryl Pinckney from the novel by Virginia Woolf), 1989 • Louis Andriessen's De Materie, 1989 • The Black Rider (with William S. Burroughs and Tom Waits), 1990 • Richard Wagner's Parsifal, Hamburg, 1991 • Alice (musical, with Tom Waits and Paul Schmidt), 1992 • Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, Hebbel Theatre (Berlin) 1992 • Skin, Meat, Bone (with Alvin Lucier), 1994 • The Meek Girl (based on a story by Fyodor Dostoevsky), 1994 • Timerocker (with Lou Reed), 1997 • Persephone (texts by Homer, Brad Gooch, Maita di Niscemi, music by Gioachino Rossini and Philip Glass), Taormina, 1997 • O Corvo Branco (with Philip Glass), Teatro Camões (Lisbon), 1998 • Monsters of Grace (with Philip Glass), 1998 • Lohengrin for the Metropolitan Opera, 1998 • Wings on Rock for the Teatro della Fortuna, Fano, 1998 • Bertolt Brecht's The Flight Across the Ocean for the Berliner Ensemble, 1998 • The Days Before – Death Destruction & Detroit III, (with Ryuichi Sakamoto), Lincoln Center 1999 • Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, Zurich Opera • POEtry, (with Lou Reed), 2000 • 14 Stations (installation), 2000 • Hot Water (multimedia concert), (with Tzimon Barto), 2000 • Woyzeck (with Tom Waits), 2000 • Persephone, 2001 • Richard Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten, Opéra National de Paris (Opéra Bastille), 2002 • White Town an homage to Arne Jacobsen at Bellevue Teatret Copenhagen, 2002 • Isamu Noguchi exhibition, 2003 • The Temptation of Saint Anthony (with Bernice Johnson Reagon) Opéra National de Paris, 2003 • Aida, Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), 2003 • I La Galigo, 2004 • Jean de La Fontaine's The Fables, Comédie-Française, 2005 • Ibsen's Peer Gynt, 2005 (in Norway) • Büchner's Leonce and Lena • VOOM Portraits, exhibition, 2007 at ACE Gallery in Los Angeles, CA • Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, Berliner Ensemble, 2007 • Beckett's Happy Days, 2008 • Rumi, Polish National Opera, 2008 • Faust for the Polish National Opera, 2008 • Sonnets (based on Shakespeare's sonnets with music by Rufus Wainwright), Berliner Ensemble, 2009 • [KOOL – Dancing in my mind], (a performance/portrait of choreographer and dancer Suzushi Hanayagi), 2009 • Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, conductor Thomas Hengelbrock, 2009 • Beckett's ''Krapp's Last Tape'', 2009 • ''L'Orfeo'', by Claudio Monteverdi, La Scala, Milan, 2009 • Káťa Kabanová, by Leoš Janáček, Národní divadlo, Prague, 2010 • Věc Makropulos, by Karel Čapek, Stavovské divadlo, Prague, 2010 • 2010 : Oh les beaux jours de Samuel Beckett, Théâtre de l'Athénée Louis-Jouvet • The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, with Marina Abramović, Manchester International Festival, July 9–16, 2011, The Lowry, Manchester, UK • ''Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria'', by Claudio Monteverdi, La Scala, Milan 2011 • Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Teatro Real de Madrid, 2011 • Mind gap exhibition, Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, 2011 • Peter Pan, with CocoRosie at the Berliner Ensemble, April 2013 • The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, with Marina Abramović, Luminato Festival, Bluma Appel Theatre, Toronto, June 14–17, 2013 • The Old Woman (play), with Willem Dafoe and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Manchester International Festival, Palace Theatre, Manchester, UK, July 2013 • 1914, based on The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus and The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, Estates Theatre, Prague, Czech Republic, April 2014 • Rhinoceros, by Eugène Ionesco, Teatrul Național Marin Sorescu, Craiova, Romania, July 2014 • Faust I and II with Herbert Grönemeyer at the Berliner Ensemble, April 2015 • ''Adam's Passion'' with Arvo Pärt, Noblessner Foundry, Tallinn, Estonia, May 2015 • ''Pushkin's Fairy Tales'' (play) (with CocoRosie), Theatre of Nations, Moscow, Russia, June 2015 • La Traviata with Teodor Currentzis, Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre, Perm, Russia, November 2016 • Hamletmachine, by Heiner Müller and Robert Wilson (with the performers of the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico), Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, 2017 • Mary Said What She Said with Isabelle Huppert, Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria, May 2019 • The Sandman (2017) with Anna Calvi, Düsseldorf May 2017 • Moby Dick, with Anna Calvi, Düsseldorf September 2024 DVD (operas) • Orphée et Eurydice by Christoph Willibald Gluck. Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, 1999. Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique & Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner, cond.; Magdalena Kožená (Orphée); Madeline Bender (Eurydice); Patricia Petibon (Amour); Arthaus Musik #100062 (2000)/ Warner Classics # 16577 (2009) • Alceste by Christoph Willibald Gluck. Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, 1999. English Baroque Soloists & Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner, cond.; Anne Sofie von Otter (Alceste), Paul Groves (Admète), Dietrich Henschel (High Priest and Hercules), Yann Beuron (Evandre), Ludovic Tézier (A Herald and Apollo), Frédéric Caton (Oracle and Infernal God), Hjördis Thébault (Coryphée). Image Entertainment ID9307RADVD (2000) / Warner Classics #16570 (2009) • Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, 2003. Netherlands Opera Chorus, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra Edo de Waart, cond.; Richard Stilwell (Sharpless), Catherine Keen (Suzuki), Martin Thompson (Pinkerton), Cheryl Barker (Butterfly), Peter Blanchet (Goro), Anneleen Bijnen (Kate Pinkerton). Kultur Video # 937 (2003) • ''L'Orfeo'' by Claudio Monteverdi, La Scala, Milan 2009. Milan Teatro alla Scala Orchestra, Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini, cond.; Georg Nigl (Orfeo); Roberta Invernizzi (La Musica/Euridice/Eco); Sara Mingardo (Sylvia/Speranza); Luigi de Donato (Caronte); Raffaella Milanesi (Proserpina); Giovanni Battista Parodi (Plutone); Furio. OPUS ARTE 1044 • Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy. Paris, 2012. Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris, Philippe Jordan, cond.; Chœur de l'Opéra national de Paris, Patrick Marie Aubert. Stéphane Degout (Pelléas); Elena Tsallagova (Mélisande); Vincent Le Texier (Golaud); Anne Sofie von Otter (Geneviève); Franz-Josef Selig (Arkel); Julie Mathevet (The little Yniold); Jérôme Varnier (Un berger, le médecin). Naive # 2159 == References ==