“When I was directing at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus for the first time I immediately built a great rapport with the entire team. We became a family.”

This is the fourth time the US theatre director Robert Wilson has staged a play at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus. His Moby Dick opened the current season with a spectacular premiere at the start of September. Wilson is one of the most sought-after theatre directors in the world. He has worked as a choreographer, actor, painter, sculptor and video artist, and also as a sound and lighting designer. His celebrated productions have been staged at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus for a number of years. Wilson’s debut in 2017 was The Sandman, adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story. This was followed by his take on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Dorian, a play inspired by the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I had the privilege of meeting the multi-talented 82-year-old two hours before the opening night of Moby Dick and gain some insights into his philosophy.

You have now directed four plays at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus. What’s the attraction for you of working in this theater, and this city?
I like Düsseldorf. I used to come here a lot, to visit a close friend, Gabriele Henkel. I was already coming to this theatre back then. And I got a sense of what had been happening in the 1950s under Gustaf Gründgens. I know about the artists and sculptors who were doing revolutionary things. When I was directing at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus for the first time I immediately built a great rapport with the entire team. Starting with the administration, right down to the various departments – costume design, makeup and lighting. We became a family, I formed some close personal bonds. My next project will take me to the Paris Opera. That’s such a huge institution that you simply can’t have the same sort of contact with the staff there. Here in Düsseldorf we’re a team, a unit. I really enjoy that. That’s why I like coming back.

Your plays are visually stunning, their aesthetic is cool and elegant. How do you manage to get beneath the surface as a theater director despite that?
I never studied theatre – I learned it by doing it. When I went from Texas to New York to study architecture and first saw the plays that were being performed on Broadway, I didn’t like them at all. I thought the acting was over the top and that the sets were superficial. When I visited the opera, I felt that it was even more grotesque. Then I saw a work by George Balanchine that I liked a lot. It was formal. In a formal setting there is more distance, more room. That left the audience space and time for reflection. In the plays on Broadway there was simply too much information for my taste. Actors trying to express themselves through poses. The abstract works by George Balanchine, by Merce Cunningham and John Cage – those I found interesting! I directed my first works more or less intuitively, they were calm and didn’t try to force ideas on the audience, but instead created space for thoughts. It was more of a Zen approach, theatre that doesn’t interpret but that is open to associations.

In Moby Dick, the text once again isn’t playing the main role. Instead, we get a rock opera with music by British musician Anna Calvi. Do images and sound weigh more heavily than words?
No. In the theatre, all elements are equally important. A movement of the set, the use of lighting, the colour of the light, a word, the sound of a word – these are all linguistic devices. For me, language doesn’t just consist of words. Theatre is something that you see and hear. There isn’t any real silence either. As long as you’re alive, there is always sound and movement. In that sense, all theatre is dance – and all theatre is also music.

The Jungle Book, The Sandman, Moby Dick. Some of the plays that you have staged in Düsseldorf are based on materials also aimed at children and young people. What is it about them that interests you?
My theatre is always based on a visual idea. This is true of almost all my work over the last 59 years. I’ve never started with a text. I’ve been lucky enough to work all over the world, in Japan and Korea, in many countries in the Far East, in Indonesia, China and Siberia and also in Russia. My work has been seen in the Middle East, in Iran – everywhere from Prague to São Paulo, in Central and North America and throughout Europe. And what made that possible? It was the fact that my works are visual. The plays don’t need to be translated, you can simply follow the images. It’s a universal language.

But to come back to your question, no, there is no deeper meaning behind the choice of plays. These productions were suggestions that were brought to me by other people. The Jungle Book was suggested by Pierre Bergé in Paris  (editor’s note: Bergé is a French businessman and patron of the arts.) Moby Dick was the idea of Nicolas Bos, the CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, who supported the production financially. And all these plays also work for children. That should be true of any theatre, whether you’re putting Clytemnestra or Medea on the stage. But how do you murder two children night after night and portray it in such a way that it is suitable for kids to watch? That’s not easy.

You like to work with the same people, for example with Christian Friedel. Anna Calvi composed the music not just for Moby Dick, but for The Sandman. Why do you like to have artists you’re familiar with on your team?
Well, when I’m working with Tom Waits that is one world, when I’m working with Philip Glass that’s a different one. The same applies to David Byrne or Luigi Nono. I’ve done operas, from Wagner to Puccini and Mozart. When I was directing Luigi Nono’s Prometeo, it was about the quietness of the sound. Then I worked with Lou Reed – where it was the loudness of the sound. I have directed plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Virginia Woolf and William S. Burroughs in a single season.

Just where we’re sitting now, I recently interviewed Christian Friedel, who told me it’s easy to get people in Düsseldorf excited about the theatre. Would you agree with that?
Yes. Going to the theatre is an established tradition for audiences in Düsseldorf. In my own country it’s different. If you look at Chicago, Miami or St. Louis, they don’t have such a tradition.

And in New York?
Most of the theatre in New York serves as light entertainment. If you look at the repertoire in Europe you’ll find classical and contemporary works. The programmes are much more varied than in New York, where the theatre is predominantly aimed at tourists.

Is that why you like working in Europe?
Yes, I was lucky enough to get to direct Goethe’s Faust, to be able to stage Hamlet in Frankfurt and King Lear in Munich. At the beginning of my career I had nothing in my hands apart from a book with blank pages, then those pages gradually filled up. I didn’t know what I was going to do. It simply happened.

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Information

George Balanchine was born in St. Petersburg in 1904 under the name Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze. He is regarded as one of the most important exponents and pioneers of neoclassical ballet. Balanchine championed clarity and reduction. He worked in many countries, including in the US at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. From January 2025, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein is staging ‘Rubies’ by Balanchine, who died in 1983, as part of its celebration of neoclassicism.

operamrhein.de

Text: Ilona Marx
Interview photos: Markus Luigs
Performance photos: Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus