World-renowned for having made a totally new kind of theatre, director-designer Robert Wilson first astonished international audiences in Paris in 1971 with Le Regard du sourd (Deafman Glance) and then with his twenty-four-hour Ouverture at the first edition of the Festival d’Automne in 1972. He also refers in this Conversation to Einstein on the Beach, premiered at the Avignon Festival in 1976, as another example among more of France offering him a home before he eventually founded the Watermill Center in 1992 on Long Island in the State of New York. Watermill, a laboratory for multidisciplinary creativity, opened its doors to the public in 2006 and is a focal point of the Conversation as a whole. Wilson’s immediately pre-Covid-pandemic production of The Messiah by Mozart was premiered at the Mozartwoche Salzburg in February 2020 and performed subsequently in Paris during a brief Covid ‘lull’ in September of that year. Discussion of this pivotal work leads to reflections on the opera productions that he had staged not so long before it, emphasizing the elements fundamental to his compositions – light, time, space, architecture, and silence. The Conversation, followed by audience questions addressed to Wilson, took place live online and on Facebook on 4 December 2020 as a prelude to the Festival Internacional Santiago a Mil in Chile, which opened on 3 January 2021. This was the Festival’s twenty-eighth year, but in a significantly restricted form due to Covid-19. A sequel to the Santiago interchange, also online but this time located in Paris, occurred on 17 September 2021. It resumes dialogue mainly on the Watermill Center’s broader cultural and social goals in the present and for the future, noting as well Wilson’s then current activities in Paris: a heavy schedule of four productions from the beginning of September to the end of December 2021, and a sound installation planned for 2022.

Maria Shevtsova gratefully thanks the Fundación Teatro a Mil and its General Director Carmen Romero for their initiative in inviting Robert Wilson with her to converse publicly as part of the Festival a Mil, and for permission to edit the transcript for publication in New Theatre Quarterly. Thanks are due to interpreters Margit Schmohl and Jorge Ramirez, and to Maria Luisa Vergara for organizing the audience participation included below, as well as to Alfonso Arenas, former Coordinator of the Education and Communities Area at the Theatre Foundation a Mil. Warmest gratitude is extended to Robert Wilson for his generosity in all sorts of ways, and not least for finding the time to continue the Conversation in Paris. Thanks for their kind support to Nuria Moreno, Production at Teatro Real Madrid, Christof Belka, Executive Director of RW Work Ltd, Clifford Allen, Director of Archives of the Watermill Center, and Leesa Kelly and Noah Khoshbin, curators of the 2021 outdoor exhibition Minneapolis Protest Murals at the Crossroads Summer Festival held at the Watermill Center. The exhibition presented 190 public artworks from the 900 boards of the Minneapolis Protest Murals which were created organically in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020. Special thanks for their gift of images are given to photographers Lucie Jansch, Javier del Real, Kristian Kruuser and Kaupo Kikkas, Lovik Delger Ostenrik, and Martyna Szczesna. Kunsang Kelden and Maria Shevtsova transcribed this Conversation in two parts. Shevtsova, Editor of New Theatre Quarterly and author of Robert Wilson (Routledge, 2007; updated edition, 2019) edited and annotated the combined transcript for publication.

世界知名的导演兼设计师罗伯特·威尔逊于 1971 年在巴黎首次以Le Regard du Sourd ( Deafman Glance ) 震惊了国际观众，然后在第一版的24 小时Ouverture中震惊了国际观众。 1972 年的欧洲艺术节。在这次对话中，他还提到了爱因斯坦在海滩上，于 1976 年在阿维尼翁音乐节上首演，作为法国在 1992 年最终在纽约州长岛创立水磨中心之前为他提供家的另一个例子。Watermill 是一个多学科创意实验室，于 2006 年向公众开放，是整个对话的焦点。威尔逊在新冠病毒大流行之前立即制作的《弥赛亚》莫扎特的作品于 2020 年 2 月在萨尔茨堡莫扎特音乐厅首演，随后于当年 9 月在巴黎短暂的 Covid“平静”期间演出。对这部关键作品的讨论引发了对他不久前上演的歌剧作品的反思，强调了他作品的基本元素——光、时间、空间、建筑和沉默。对话，随后是观众向威尔逊提出的问题，于 2020 年 12 月 4 日在网上和 Facebook 上进行了现场直播，作为 2021 年 1 月 3 日在智利开幕的智利圣地亚哥米勒国际电影节的前奏。这是该电影节的第 28 个年头，但由于 Covid-19，其形式受到很大限制。圣地亚哥立交桥的续集也在 2021 年 9 月 17 日上线，但这次位于巴黎。

Maria Shevtsova 衷心感谢 Fundación Teatro a Mil 及其总经理 Carmen Romero 主动邀请 Robert Wilson 与她一起作为音乐节的一部分进行公开交谈，并允许编辑成绩单以便在新剧院季刊上发表。感谢口译员 Margit Schmohl 和 Jorge Ramirez，感谢 Maria Luisa Vergara 组织以下观众参与，以及 Alfonso Arenas，米尔剧院基金会教育和社区领域的前协调员。向罗伯特·威尔逊表示最热烈的感谢，感谢他以各种方式慷慨解囊，尤其是感谢他抽出时间在巴黎继续对话。感谢他们对皇家马德里剧院制作人 Nuria Moreno、RW Work Ltd 执行董事 Christof Belka、Watermill 中心档案馆主任 Clifford Allen 以及 2021 年明尼阿波利斯户外展览策展人 Leesa Kelly 和 Noah Khoshbin 的大力支持抗议壁画在水车中心举行的十字路口夏季音乐节上。该展览展示了 2020 年 5 月 25 日乔治·弗洛伊德（George Floyd）被谋杀后在明尼阿波利斯有机创作的 900 幅明尼阿波利斯抗议壁画中的 190 幅公共艺术品。特别感谢摄影师 Lucie Jansch、Javier del Real、 Kristian Kruuser 和 Kaupo Kikkas、Lovik Delger Ostenrik 和 Martyna Szczesna。Kunsang Kelden 和 Maria Shevtsova 将这次对话分为两部分进行转录。Shevtsova，《新剧院季刊》的编辑和Robert Wilson的作者（Routledge，2007 年；更新版，2019 年）编辑并注释了合并的成绩单以供出版。