[People chanting numbers]
Philip: Bob was the first of us to go to Broadway.
It was a short run, but it was Broadway.
And, uh, it was very quickly after that that we began talking about
a piece, we didn't know what the piece would be.
We came up with the title 'Einstein On The Beach.'
[Violin playing over operettic singing]
I thought of Einstein as a God of our time.
We know stories about him and we come to the theatre sharing something together.
And in a sense, uh, there was no need to tell a story because we already
knew a story.
How this man who, was a pacifist also, contributed to the splitting of the atom.
[Loud fast music]
Einstein was a milestone in that it brought an even wider acclaim and
gave him a whole new audience and gave opera a whole new audience.
[Fast violin over operettic singing]
I think it's the first time in the history of opera in which the opera
music was composed around the stage sets.
[Fast violin over operettic singing]
Woman: I think I've seen Einstein 40 times or something like that.
It's one of the great theatre works of the 20th century.
If Bob had done nothing but that, and he's done so much more.
Robert: When we first made Einstein, I went to the Metropolitan Opera
and asked them if they would do it.
I went to the National Endowment for the Arts and asked them if they would
support an opera and they said, 'that sort of thing should not be
in the conventional theatre, you should do that in a loft downtown.'
So I though, well, let's see.
I think it should be right in our major opera houses, and everyone was afraid that
we wouldn't get an audience.
There wouldn't be a public that would come for something like that.
At the Met it wouldn't be for 'their audience.'
I tried everywhere to raise this money.
I went to Paris, France.
'Einstein On The Beach,' it was a commission by Michel Guy,
who was the Minister of Culture at the time.
Philip: The word had gone out that there's something unusual had taken place.
Jane Hermon was in charge of special events at the Met.
So Jane Hermon came over to see the piece.
She said, 'well, maybe as a special event we could bring it to the Met.'
Robert: But they wanted me, Robert Wilson, Byrd Hoffman Foundation, to produce it
on their day off!
They would allow me to rent the house on a Sunday, with triple time wages!
I was bankrupt, I had no money, I said, 'let's go for it.'
[Opera singing]
Benedicte: Phil, Bob, they were both absolutely dying to see the work seen by a
American public.
It's fine for them to have the European public, but for an American it's
not enough!
They want the American, they want them to recognize their work.
Robert: I sold tickets from $2 to $2,000.
We sold out in two days.
And I put the $2 tickets next to the $2,000 tickets.
[From stage] This court of common pleas is now in session!
Woman: We all went as a family and we were all quite impressed and, uh, I had
never been to the Met before and we were sitting in like the directors box.
And we all felt very special and important.
[Loud fast music]
My father was a heavy smoker, and Einstein was very long without
an intermission.
And my father sat there throughout the whole thing without getting up and taking
a break, which was amazing.
And then, at the end of it when people were standing and clapping and cheering,
I just looked at him and there was tears and such pride in his face
that it was quite amazing.
[Audience cheering and clapping]
David: The fact that it was at the Met was a, really was downtown
going very uptown.
What was, uh, I think shocking for many people was to see the ideas
and the aesthetic, and, uh, the- these - I guess you could call them
downtown elements that Bob was embodied in many ways, done with a
professionalism that equal to anything else on Broadway or at the Met Opera.
That was- it was a way of saying 'we are equal.'
Robert: My father said, 'why, this is very impressive!'
He said, 'you must be making a lot of money!'
And I said 'no dad, I'm not.'
I said, 'I produce this work, it cost a million dollars to produce it.
I raised $850,000, I'm $150,000 in debt.'
'$150,000 in debt?'
And I said, 'yes sir I am.'
And he said, 'son, I didn't know you were smart enough to be able
to lose $150,000.'
That's probably the nicest thing he ever said to me.
And I said, 'dad, it wasn't easy, it was a lot of work.'
It was really hard, you know.'
Philip: We always think of fame and fortune as of they go together,
but they don't really.
The fame may come first and the fortune may come and may not come.
Eventually it can come, perhaps, but it doesn't always come.
But, uh, Bob did something smarter than-- he stayed in Europe.
The big success of Einstein was in Europe, there was no one in America
that really wanted to work with Bob or me.
[People clammoring]