The exquisite architect of the stage, Robert Wilson, dies

"I think of my work as a piece, an opus, a construction, a product that evolves over time and combines various elements and very valuable collaborations. I've always been interested in something that straddles art and life." These are the words of Robert Wilson , one of the great stage directors of our time, who has died in New York at the age of 83. He was, according to the New York Times , "the most important theater artist in the United States, and even in the world."

Exquisite, perfectionist, elegant, with an unmistakable personality, especially in his treatment of light, he worked on numerous occasions in Spain: 'O corvo branco', 'Osud', 'Vida y muerte de Marina Abramóvić', ' Turandot ' -all four at the Teatro Real-, 'Don Juan último', 'The Temptation of St. Anthony', 'Einstein on the Beach', 'Proserpina', 'La dama del mar' or 'Letter to a man' are some of the titles that he presented (and in several cases premiered) in our country. Precisely during the revival at the Teatro Real of his production of Puccini 's opera , Wilson shared part of his artistic credo: "The stage is a place unlike any other place. In my fifty-seven-year career as a director, I have never told an actor or a singer what to think. My formal directions are very strict, and the actors and singers have to follow those formal lines; But what each person feels is totally personal.

Robert 'Bob' Wilson was born on October 4, 1941, in Waco, Texas. By his own admission, he was an introverted child. "My mother told me I'd do well in the world because I could stand alone," he once said. In 1962, he moved to New York, where he studied interior design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and where he founded the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds theater collective, a laboratory where he would create his first experimental works, such as 'Deafman Glance' (1970) and 'A Letter for Queen Victoria' (1974–1975).

His encounter with composer Philip Glass and choreographer Lucinda Childs marked a turning point in his career. Together, in 1976, they premiered the five-hour opera "Einstein on the Beach," which broke with traditional opera structures and is an undisputed benchmark of international avant-garde theater.

Opera was a field in which he made his personality evident, with productions of popular titles such as 'Madama Butterfly', 'Pelléas et Mélisande', 'La Traviata' and 'L'Orfeo'. But his work with artists from different disciplines such as Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed , Jessye Norman, Mikhail Baryshnikov , Willem Dafoe and Marina Abramović is also notable. His artistic side should not be forgotten, with drawings, paintings and sculptures exhibited in museums around the world, and with designs for light installations.

Because if there was one thing that distinguished Robert Wilson's work, it was his treatment of light on stage, which he considered an additional performer. His lighting setup sessions in theaters were marathon, and the actors or extras he used as 'light doubles' admired as much as they feared his meticulousness. " Without light, there is no space ," said the director, who always presented minimalist, austere, and elegant productions, both in terms of the scenery and the stage movement, always detailed and precise.

"When I create, I always start with the space," he stated in an interview with ABC in 2004 on the occasion of the premiere of ' Proserpina ' at the Roman Theater in Mérida. "Then I create a structure in time. Finally, when all the visual elements are in place, I've created a framework for the actors to fill. Whenever I adapt a production to a new location, I have to start with the space first and act accordingly. The challenge is to work with the existing architecture, which is extremely beautiful and powerful. It has to become an integral part of the production, so that the space is one of the living elements of the work and not just decoration."

"Robert Wilson," Emma Suárez , who played Proserpina, said of him, "is a painter who creates a painting by introducing his compositional elements: actors, music, lights, and sound. He breaks all the rules, even mine, disconcerting."