It’s curious to see him obsessed with his stage lighting work. In his case it is totally true that light is, as Albert Einstein said, the measure of all things. It is the issue on which his theatrical conception pivots. And until he’s settled in the exact way he wants, he can’t seem to rest. Robert Wilson (Waco, Texas, 1941) is the American star who is sporting Barcelona these days while Jota Bayona walks through Los Angeles. Visual artists and living legend on stages around the world – he has created more than 200 theater and opera productions with his particular vocabulary – Wilson is at the Liceu finalizing his particular vision of The Messiah, which the theater premieres this Saturday and of which functions will be held. His aesthetic idea of ??abstraction and statism return in this 2020 production from Salzburg’s MozartWoche festival, here featuring the solo voices of Julia Lezhneva, Kate Lindsey, Richard Croft and Krešimir Stražanac.
Josep Pons musically directs Mozart’s version of this Händel classic, something that Wilson is especially interested in. This restless avant-garde who revolutionized New York in the seventies receives La Vanguardia in the dressing rooms of the Liceu. His last proposal at the Rambla theater was a magical Pelléas et Mélisande in 2012, although he had already premiered his iconic Einstein on the beach in 1992. Then he returned, to the TNC, with Mijail Baríshnikov turned into Nijinski. And the Teatro Real in Madrid has programmed its magnetic Turandot on several occasions.
The setting is your garden. You decide the action, the movement, the lights, the gestures… What is the starting point? Is the music?
I start by making drawings to get an idea of ??the proportion of space and light. I can work independently of the text. I can work independently of music. I add text and music later. If I start with the music or the text, I will tend to follow that instead of creating a space. It is in the space that I put text and music. Because my responsibilities as director, designer, lighting… are many, but perhaps the most important is to create a space in which to listen to music and see. The opera is full of elements that happen at the same time and that distract me. If I want to concentrate, I close my eyes and listen better. And I wonder if there might be something on stage that helps me hear better even than with my eyes closed.
Does the light allow you to hear better?
It is an element that allows me to hear and see better. I want to illuminate the faces of the singers, because the eyes will always look for what shines the most. That’s why I spend so much time trying to illuminate people, not the space in general. Especially when there is a movement that I like. I’m not interested in the general space, but I am interested in the people. It is about helping with lighting to better listen, with such a figure that moves, goes from here to there and is illuminated. This already happened in the cinema of the 30s and 40s: the actors were always illuminated, sometimes just their silhouette, but it is an essential element that helps us highlight the characters. In fact, my opera from the beginning was a silent opera. I called it opera, which comes from the Latin opus and means that it incorporates everything, because philosophy, architecture, dance, poetry, music fit in there. I am interested in the arts as a whole.
But space is created from light. How do you use it architecturally?
I start with sketches and drawings, for the structure. I see if the space is going to be dark or light, or vertical, horizontal, gray, colorful, or black and white, and then I add color, or how do I add color, how do I mix gray and… gray with red and green and all the colors… and then I wonder if that’s a warmer gray, is that a cooler gray?
The public will not see a Messiah about the life of Jesus Christ… How will you get that preconceived idea out of the public’s mind?
It’s actually very abstract. You don’t have a strict narrative. And that gives you enormous freedom as a director, as a singer, as an orchestra director, as a designer. You have space to reflect and think about many things. They give you an open situation and in the end it should stay open.
Could it be at the service of a conflict like Israel between Jews and Muslims?
Religion will always divide men. But this piece is not about religion. Religion has no place in the theater. If you put religion on the scene it becomes sacrilege. Theater can have a spiritual experience, but don’t put religion on stage.
What difference does choosing the later version of Mozart make?
Mozart has added light and that is the big difference. Mozart’s version of Handel’s Messiah, for me, is brought to light. They are dark moments, but you need the dark moments to make the light moments bright. So I obscured the dark moments because of the light. It is a contrast of feelings. It is always so. Every opposite needs its opposite.
Have you ever had an opera title that you wanted to bring to the stage rejected by a theater because they considered that it would not fit your style?
Not yet. I’ve done a lot of different things. I just did Three Tall Women by Edward Albee, which is usually done in a very naturalistic psychological way. I obviously didn’t do it that way. I have tackled narrative works. I just do things the way I do them.
Bringing the mask, the traditional theater of Japan, China, Africa… and ancient Greek. And yet it is the most avant-garde… Why do you think that is?
It’s just that we are always rediscovering the classics. Socrates said that the baby is born knowing everything. The discovery of knowledge is the learning process. And I think what we are constantly rediscovering is what we are born knowing. And those are the classics, that is. the continuous line that you see if you go to a theater, to the ancient Greek theater, if you go to the classical theater of India, Japan or China. It’s the same in architecture, if you see the mathematical formulas of Mayan architecture, if you see the mathematical formulas of Egyptian architecture or Chinese architecture, it’s all the same mathematics. The same as Mies van der Rohe. Man is always rediscovering what he was born knowing, and they are these classic patterns. They said that Einstein on the beach was avant-garde, but in reality it is very classical in its form, in its construction, theme and variation: four acts and three repeated themes. The shape is nothing new.
What do you think remains of all that, of those years of yours in Manhattan and the factory of creators from different disciplines who came together in something new?
I think that’s what will always be happening. Man needs to unite, congregate. That’s why I think theater will always exist, because this exists. Man’s unconscious psychic need to congregate to unite to share something. Whether… a football game or a theater or whatever. What is exciting is not only the event we attend, but the fact that we are in a stadium or a room where people gather. So I think that. Think about my generation. We went to Madison Square Gardens to hear Mick Jagger or Tina Turner or whoever. Tina was exciting, sure, but what was just as exciting or perhaps more exciting is that we were all in one room together. That is an important function in society.
And what remains in your work from your discoveries in dance… when you meet George Balanchine or work with Merce Cunningham?
We are born dancing, being born is moving, breathing. Movement is part of human nature. And sometimes it’s more formal.
But on stage his is a very intimate movement.
Well, even if you’re standing on stage, you’re moving. If you breathe, you are alive. Then all the theaters dance. You are either moving outward or not, but there is always movement inward.
Mikhail Barisnikov came to his Water Mill studio on Long Island years ago to explore what they could do together. Did you already have in mind to turn him into Nijisnki?
I thought it was very interesting that one of the great dancers of the 20th century has his reflection on Nijinski. Not only Nijinski as a dancer, but also Nijinski’s life. There are many parallels in Misha’s life and in Nijinsky’s personal life.
Yeah?
Sure. Relationship with family and others. So it was very interesting for him to explore the life of this famous dancer as if he were a famous dancer himself. He was like a mirror.
What character would you personally like to put on stage as that mirror?
I never wanted to be on stage. I’ve acted from time to time, but I’m not interested. But now they are trying to force me to take a look back in time, to write an autobiography. But I haven’t, my life has been my life and I don’t know… My work won’t be seen in 200 years. He was a product of his time. Anyway, I won’t be around in 200 years. You can say what you want, but my work was a product of its time. I did a 24-hour play at the Opera Comique in Paris and that won’t happen again. Nobody knows what happened. It has been forgotten. And he was a product of his time. It wasn’t meant to last 50 years. It was 50 years ago that I did it. But… It was an event of that time, and it happened once. You experience it and that’s it. That’s all, I didn’t mean to sound like Shakespeare wrote a play that was thought to maybe be performed in the future. I don’t see my job that way.
He sees it as something ephemeral, as if in passing…
Yeah, I mean I did the play that made my career, Deafman Glance, and no one knows what happened in 1971 anymore. That was never meant to last. I have worked with housewives. I have worked with people on the street. The times are different. People are different. It was made up of products of the time, people of the time. The New Jersey Housewives were the same, but they are very different today than they were in 1969, when I did it. The times are different.
This interview takes place on March 8, women’s day. any wishes?
More power for women. I wish we could elect Michelle Obama president of the United States.
Are you worried about these presidential elections?
Yeah.
And what are you going to do about it?
I would vote for Michelle. She would be great. Yes. We need her voice.
