Robert Wilson, the acclaimed theatre director, has died aged 83. His career saw him work as a director but also a playwright, choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor and lighting designer.
He is best known for the opera Einstein on the Beach his collaboration with composter Phillip Glass and choreographer Lucinda Childs. He also worked extensively with musician Tom Waits.
His death was confirmed by the Watermill Center, an arts hub Wilson founded in Water Mill, New York. He died peacefully after “a brief but acute illness”.
“We are heartbroken to announce the passing of Robert M. Wilson, artist, theater and opera director, architect, set and lighting designer, visual artist, and founder of The Watermill Center.
“Robert Wilson died peacefully today in Water Mill, New York, at the age of 83, after a brief but acute illness.
“While facing his diagnosis with clear eyes and determination, he still felt compelled to keep working and creating right up until the very end. His works for the stage, on paper, sculptures and video portraits, as well as The Watermill Center, will endure as Robert Wilson’s artistic legacy.” the said,
Wilson had spoken about the difficult childhood he had as a gay teen growing up in a conservative family in Texas. In a 1998 interview with The New York Times he recounted that going to the theatre was considered a sin.
“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.”
After studying business in Texas, he moved to Brooklyn and began exploring the arts. His interests ranged widely from theatre to painting, architecture and dance.
In 1968 he founded an experimental theatre company Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds. It was named after Bird Hoffman, the theatre teacher who had helped him overcome his stutter as a teenager. Their work was boundary pushing, including an improvised play that was performed on a mountain top ran non stop for six nights and seven days.
The opera Einstein on the Beach, which was first performed in 1976, was his big breakthrough. After this he worked with many major theatre and opera companies across the world.
He would later reunite with Glass for The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down. The epic work saw him working with Phillip Glass, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and other composers. It was originally envisaged as a day long opera that would run alongside the 1984 Los Angels Olympics. The six act work has never been performed in full.
Wilson’s career saw him stage many works from different writers and he collaborated widely. Works by Virginia Woolf, William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Henrik Ibsen, Samuel Beckett, Charles Gounod, and Eugene Ionesco were among his repertoire.
His collaborators included William Burroughs, Rufus Wainwright, CocoRosie, Isabelle Huppert, Arvo Part, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Willem Dafoe, Martin McDonagh, Allen Ginsberg, Lady Gaga, Tilda Swinton, Jim Jarmusch, Laurie Anderson and many others.
