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Out of the ferment of the 1960s, Robert Wilson
brought performance art to Wagnerian scale in the 1970s with
his epic "visual operas." Originally trained as a painter, Wilson
was frustrated with the images in his head that were so much
richer than anything he could get on canvas. Together with his
collaborators who varied from the autistic child Christoper
Knowles, to musical celebrities David Byrne and Jessye Norman,
to some of the great artists of our time including poet Allen
Ginsberg, composer Philip Glass, and playwright Heiner MŸller,
Wilson created an inexplicable music theater experience from
the integration of non-narrative drama, scenic spectacle, music,
sound, silence, and dance.
Influenced by the work of John Cage and Merce
Cunningham, Wilson's concept of visual theatre set movement
and staged events free in time and space, as the surrealist
writer Louis Aragon declared, "an extraordinary freedom machine."
Large scale works such as Einstein on the Beach and The Life
and Times of Sigmund Freud were biographical sketches of the
mind, generating for the spectator an "intuitive" experience
drawn from suggestive actions, slow-motion, and repetitive,
non-sensical texts. Unlike the linear flow of time in traditional
theater, Wilson's music-visual interface frees the spectator,
allowing the mind to freely explore and participate, "rather
than the usual virtuoso tools used to project some play's predetermined
energies and meanings."
When Einstein on the Beach was given its American
premiere at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1976, the two
principal collaborators, Robert Wilson and composer Philip Glass
were totally unprepared for the impact this work would have
on the contemporary performing arts. Based on the creative genius
of Einstein, and his fascination for numbers, technology, music,
and philosophy, the four hour "science-fiction opera" includes
a trial, a steam locomotive, and a futuristic spaceship. Contrary
to traditional opera, there is no linear narrative, no orchestra
in the pit, the libretto is replaced with numerical and syllabic
counting, while a small instrumental ensemble supported by electronic
keyboards is placed right on stage.
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