After visiting the wonderful Antony Gormley's London studio today with a group of esteemed friends, I am now performing Krapp's Last Tape at the Barbican Theatre. More performances tomorrow and Sunday (see calendar).
Tonight, our new production of Pushkin's Fairy Tales will open at Moscow's Theater of Nations. Working with CocoRosie again has been a lot of fun - Bianca and Sierra are simply the Best! Looking forward to seeing the Russian cast, led by Evgenyi Mironov, sing CocoRosie's music and move through the world of Pushkin's Fairy Tales... Thank you to everyone, and: Break a Leg!
Evgenyi Mironov as Pushkin (Photograph by Lucie Jansch)
Getting ready for Krapp's Last Tape at the Holland Festival. - Congratulations to Ruth Mackenzie on her first Holland Festival edition! See you at the Stadsschwouburg tonight or on Sunday, June 7. Love, Bob
I think it was in the early eighties that I first heard the music of Arvo Pärt. I was immediately drawn to it. I realized that it was something very special that created a certain mental space which I had never known before. A space I had never entered that allowed for tremendous freedom.
Arvo Pärt and Robert Wilson (Photograph © Julian Mommert)
Our first collaboration, Adam's Passion, opens this Tuesday in a spectacular industrial space in the harbor of Tallinn, Estonia. Adam’s Passion is something we hear and see. I construct a kind of environment or space, that hopefully helps the public hear the music better. It is a work that we want to reflect on, and leaving the theatre it is something we continue to think about. It is important that what I do as a director or designer, stays open ended. I set up a space that can suggest ideas, but does not imply or insist that other people think what I think.
Finally: Faust Part I and II opens tonight at the Berliner Ensemble.
Break a leg and, as they say here: "Toi Toi Toi!" to the whole team; the actors, the band and the technical crews. Let's make this a night to remember.
Love, Bob
I am in final rehearsals for Faust (Part I and II), to open on April 22 at the Berliner Ensemble. After many other Fausts in my career (Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, two operas - Doctor Faustus by Manzoni and Faust by Gounod), and works that contain other Faustian pacts with the devil (such as The Black Rider and The Freeshooter), this is finally the original. Maybe I have just been warming up all these years, for Goethe's masterpiece... In any case, it is great fun to work with Herbert Grönemeyer again. We did Leonce and Lena at the B.E. twelve years ago! It doesn't take much to be deeply touched by his beautiful music. See you at the opening or one of the previews.
After the successful openings of "Norma" at the Opernhaus Zürich and "L'incoronazione di Poppea" at La Scala in Milano. I am now in beautiful, sunny Paris for rehearsals of "Pelléas et Mélisande." The show opens on Saturday, February 7th at the Opera Bastille. You can find more information and tickets here.
My recent production The Blacks [Les Nègres], which premiered at l'Odéon Théâtre de l'Europe this past fall, just made its Antwerp debut on Sunday!
Enjoy this little video, courtesy of deSingel Internationale Kunstcampus, featuring a brief interview with me on the productions
"Les Nègres," een theaterstuk van de Fransman Jean Genet, gaat over racisme. Het is de bedoeling om het publiek op een flamboyante manier een spiegel voor te houden. Omdat racisme de wereld nog lang niet uit is. VRT journaal, 25 januari 2015
