Bill Viola, a video artist who combined with director Peter Sellars on a groundbreaking production of Wagner's “Tristan und Isolde” originally seen in Los Angeles, Paris and New York, has died at age 73. Viola died Friday at his home in Long Beach of Alzheimer's disease, his . What was called “The Tristan Project” opened in concert form at Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2004, premiered on stage at the Paris Opéra the following year and was presented in concert at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in 2007.
His staging has been revived several times in Paris, as recently as 2023, and versions have been presented in Helsinki; Kobe, Japan; London; Madrid; Rotterdam, Netherlands; St. Petersburg, Russia; Stockholm; Tokyo; and Toronto. Videos were exhibited at New York's James Cohan gallery in 2007.
“I hope that the audience will leave the theater having a deeper understanding of the nature of our short time here on Earth and the importance and power of love and any kind of relationship we're in really with the things and people in the world,” Viola said in a . While singers performed on the stage, a huge video showed images of individuals, water and candles and fire that ran from grainy gray to high-definition color. His technique included Viola filming in Vermont woods for a week alone with a camcorder; to building a waterfall on a soundstage and lowering an actor on a wire, then using the video in reverse during the performance to make the actor appea.
