Robert Wilson’s final completed work, MOTHER, is a durational piece created around Michelangelo’s Pietà Rondanini, housed at the Spanish Hospital of Milan’s Castello Sforzesco, and with music by Arvo Pärt (Stabat Mater). Around its première in April of 2025, Wilson remarked in an interview that “there are very few places where you have time to think. Theater and installations can create these spaces for us—mental spaces for thinking and dreaming.”
The work proved this to be true: audiences at the always sold-out sessions in the Sforzesco were deeply moved by the 25-minute installation—one that tells a story but has no narrative; is filled with movement despite centering on a marble sculpture; and draws viewers in a profound state of immersion.
MOTHER will be on view at the MAXXI Museum in Rome from December 12 through January 18, with seven performances daily (five on 12/24 and 12/31). In addition, three special evening presentations on Dec. 12, 13, and 14 will feature live music performed by the Vox Clamantis ensemble from Tallinn.
The sculpture in this edition will be the Gariboldi Cast (1953) of the Pietà Rondanini, and the space a faithful reconstruction of the Spanish Hospital room in Milan.
Photograph © Lucie Jansch