Robert Wilson - director. Biography, personal life, career

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:55

Robert Wilson is a director, an outstanding director, a perfectionist who completely changed the idea of modern theatrical art and the audience's perception of the actions taking place on the stage. He gave incredible liveliness and realism to his fantasies, embodying them in plays, using not language as the main information urge, but movements that became a wonderful dance, conveying through choreography what is hidden in the true meaning and tragedy of the production.

Early years

Robert Wilson is a director whose biography began in the small town of Waco, Texas on October 4, 1941. The childhood of this creative person cannot be called happy. A severe motor-speech disorder that Robert suffered from made him the subject of ridicule from his peers.

Wilson's teacher and mentor Byrd Hoffman helped him get rid of a speech impediment - stuttering, in his honor the grateful student opened a theater laboratory in the attic of the house called the School of Birds.

Education is the beginning of a career

Robert Wilson is a director who may not have had a career as he was educated at the University of Texas as an administrative student. So the great director of the state post would have held if he had not realized the creative potential of his personality.

It happened in 1962, when he finally realized that he was going the wrong way, trying to study uninteresting and boring science, imposed by the desire of his parents to make an educated person out of him. Dropping out of university in his senior year, Wilson enrolled at the Pratt Institute in New York, where he moved to study architectural design.

In 1966, after graduation, Robert is an internship with the architect Paolo Soleri. But neither painting, nor architecture, nor modern theater impressed him as much as his acquaintance with the abstract ballet of George Balanchine and the experiments in choreographic performances of Merce Cunningham.

Japanese theatrical art had a great influence on my future career. It was the first sure step towards Robert's realization of his destiny when he presented his own production to the society.

Steps to recognition

Perhaps because Robert Wilson, a film director of the future, felt inferior as a child, he devoted his early career to working with autistic and deaf-mute children, discovering new ways to make the theater more expressive.

In 1969, twothe first productions that deserved the attention of the audience. These are The King of Spain and The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud.

Robert became world-famous with the play "The Look of the Deaf", which was released in 1971. It was this seven-hour performance without a single spoken word that was recognized as an outstanding work of modern dramaturgy.

No less impressive performance called "Letter to Queen Victoria" in 1974 was created by Robert Wilson - director. Autistic Christopher Knowles became its main character at the age of thirteen.

The most successful fruits of directing

Robert Wilson has directed more than 140 theatrical productions, most of which have received a standing ovation from the audience and rave reviews from critics. In 1972, he realized a large-scale colorful project with the participation of half a thousand actors who danced in the open air. The action lasted seven days and nights on seven hills in Iran and was called "Mount Ka and Guard Terrace".

In 1976, he completed work on a musical production with elements of the opera Einstein on the Beach, firmly establishing himself as a surrealist drama artist.

A poetic meditation acclaimed by French critics, "Einstein on the Beach" became the first successful experience in the art of music, forever leaving in Robert's soul a love of music and opera. The performance was presented on a world tour, at various festivals and became a recognized masterpiece.

A large-scale interpretation of the great military confrontations of all time,which, according to the director's idea, were to be embodied in a twelve-hour production, was never completed.

The following years, Robert works on staging plays - masterpieces of world classical music and literature. Among them are The Magic Flute, Madama Butterfly, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Orpheus, Aida and many others.

The director made 15 avant-garde films, including "Alceste" and "Orpheus and Eurydice" in 2000, "Orpheus" in 2010

Robert collaborates with the greatest actors, opera singers, playwrights. He gives new life, interpreting in his own way the works of A. P. Chekhov, W. Shakespeare, V. Wolf and other recognized masters of classical literature.

Work in Russia

The most complex visualization of the project "Pushkin's Tales" was carried out in Moscow. Robert Wilson, the director, whose photo is presented in the article, involved 25 Russian actors in productions.

The performances were based not only on the tales of the outstanding writer and poet (“The Tale of Tsar S altan”, “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish”, “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel”, etc.), but the author's drawings by A. WITH. Pushkin. Immersion in Russian folklore deeply impressed the director, and the culture of the Russian people delighted.

Private life

A person quite hidden from the press and prying eyes, especially when it comes to his personal life, Robert Wilson. The director is gay, according to the yellow press, or not, to be sureit is forbidden. During the interview, the playwright willingly talks about his creative, theatrical activities, but when the conversation turns to personal topics, he remains stubbornly silent.

Robert behaves like a true celebrity, who carefully guards his peace and comfort with trepidation. Even the director plans his public appearances no less carefully than his productions.

However, Wilson has a naturally good heart. Having accidentally met on the street in 1968 a black boy who turned out to be deaf and mute, he took him to the main role in the play “The View of the Deaf”. After a seven-hour action about the fantasies of a deaf-mute boy, the director adopted a teenager.

Deserved Prizes and Awards

Robert Wilson is a theater director recognized by the world of contemporary art as a talent. Over the years of work, he has received more than six dozen prizes and awards, among which the most significant are:

• Guggenheim Foundation Prize (1971 and 1980);
• Rockefeller Foundation Award (1975);
• Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale (1993);
• Europe Award (1997).

Wilson is a member of the American Academy of Arts. In 2002, in France, he was awarded the title of Commander of the National Order of Merit in Literature and Art.

Important components of the Wilson method productions

Robert Wilson is a director whose personal life is not as interesting as his own original method of theater productions, because they have the mostan important role is played by accents on the smallest details, the unification of everything that happens on stage into a single whole.

The main components of a successful theatrical action according to the method of Robert Wilson:

• Language and words don't matter. Much more important is the silence, which is broken by noise, replaced by silence again. The play of contrasts in the perception of sounds leaves a truly unforgettable impression of the piece.
• Emphasis on the difference between the visual perception of the action on stage and the sound. What the viewer hears should be harmoniously complemented by what he sees, but by no means repeated. The movements are a fluid dance, a choreographed story that gives meaning to the play. Movement paired with sound creates a certain rhythm inherent only in this performance.
• Playing with light and shadow. Critics who have watched Wilson's performances write that he, like an artist, paints pictures. The stage replaces the canvas, and the light replaces the paints.
• A play with words, where the main meaning is not in the lines spoken by the actors, but a certain subtext hidden between the lines.

Robert Wilson is a director, one of the outstanding representatives of the theatrical avant-garde, a talented sculptor, screenwriter and photo artist. The furniture he created, incredible installations, drawings were repeatedly presented in galleries and art museums in London, Tokyo, Rome at 133 exhibitions, causing great delight. An exhibition of photographs "Living People" featuring celebrities was presented in Moscow.

One of the greatestcreative people of the 20th century, whose contribution to art is a valuable heritage for future generations. And his original approach to dramaturgy will become an unsurpassed example for novice directors and directors.