When we reach Nicola Panzer, co-director of Handel’s Messiah, arranged by Mozart, it is August 2025, days after the passing of Robert Wilson. She—along with the rest of the world—has just lost the avant-garde stage director and artist, her collaborator of 38 years. She’s in mourning, but pressing forward, because that’s what Wilson, creator of HGO’s Messiah production, would have wanted.

“I have worked with Bob for 38 years. It’s a long, long time,” she says. “We shared a lot of our art, and life as well. I know in my brain that it has happened, but for my emotional state, I just can’t believe it. It’s very sad. It’s a deep sorrow. But Bob always said, let’s go on. Let’s do something. Let’s continue. So I know that he would love for all of us to continue to work on his ideas.”

At the time of our interview, Panzer is in the middle of staging Wilson’s new Tristan and Isolde for the Slovenian National Theatre Opera and Ballet Ljubljana. She tells us that, together with Wilson, the creative team had just wrapped the A staging and moved on to B. Asked what that means, she lays out the intricate process Wilson used throughout his life for his opera productions, which typically took about two years to develop.

The team launched with a workshop where they collected text, images, and ideas, at which time Wilson began drawing—the start of his creative process. Then came stage A, with a mock set, makeup, and “a bit of lighting,” where they’d start developing their concept and staging their production, using students as stand-ins for the artists. The Bauprobe, a full-scale test of the stage design, would come next, followed by the construction of the set and, finally, stage B, “which is the most similar to a normal rehearsal period before the opening”—rehearsing the show with the cast.

But not every step in B would be considered standard: it also included 60 to 70 hours of lighting rehearsals alone, again using stand-ins, before lighting and all the other elements—makeup, costumes, singers, orchestra—could come together. “And that,” Panzer says, “is the procedure. That’s what it takes to get to the end of a production with Bob.”

While, sadly, the world will not see Robert Wilson create any more new productions, Panzer explains that she and the team will continue the applicable parts of his process here in Houston for Messiah, as they will do in other posthumous Wilson productions already planned at the time of his death. During the wide-ranging conversation that follows, Panzer shares more about her creative relationship with Wilson, as well as her own life and career.

Tell us about your background.

I’m German, born in Dortmund in the west part of Germany. My father was a conductor. My mother was an actress. So I grew up in a theater family. I always was connected with the theater and music, especially music. Being a little child, I was in the shows and performances when my father conducted and my mother acted, and I was always fascinated. But sometimes, you think you have to do something else from what your parents do. And sometimes, the parents also think, oh, it’s a hard job. You better do something normal. After school, I first studied journalism, because I also like to write.

While I did this journalism education, working for a big newspaper, they sent me to do a story about a tour of the Arena di Verona. They were coming to my hometown and were performing La bohème, and they were looking for extras. At the newspaper, they said, oh, yeah, you can go there, you can be an extra, and then you will write what’s happening backstage. I did it, and being part of a theater production, even when it was as a very unimportant extra, I felt, this is my world. I have to do it.

What drew you to this world so strongly?

For me, the difference was that when you do theater or art, you are inside. You can go very deep, and you can concentrate very intensely on one story, on one subject, on one topic. And if you do journalism, you go here and there and, okay, you can do your research and write about it, but it’s a totally different way of working. It was not my way. I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to go to the theater.

How did you meet Bob Wilson?

I went to Hamburg to study music theater and opera directing at the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg. In 1987, the composer Rolf Liebermann, who was running the Hamburg State Opera, hired me as an evening director, assistant director for the opera house. So I interrupted my studies for one year. But it went so well, they asked me to stay, and I finished my studies in parallel. It was a lot, but it was good training for later working with Bob. We would work a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.

I was a member of the Hamburg ensemble for 10 or 11 years. I met Bob because he was doing a production there, Cosmopolitan Greetings, a jazz opera, in my first year there. And then we continued to work together. Of course at first, I could only do, like, one production a year, but from ’98, I was freelance, and then we did a lot more together. But I also did a lot of other projects. I worked in the Salzburg Festival. I was assistant director twice for the whole Ring in Bayreuth. And I started to do my own productions. Also, I’ve taught in different universities over the years.

How are your productions different from Bob’s?

Bob, he doesn’t like the psychological theater at all. And I like it. I like the abstract theater, but I also like psychological theater. My productions are less abstract than Bob’s productions, but I also work with abstract sets and a lot of light. And the connections between the characters, it’s psychological, based on the story.

In those early days, how did you and Bob form a connection?

Well, it’s hard to say. In a way, it worked because I was very innocent and naïve. The theater said to me, there is someone doing a workshop. You have to go. They need someone. And I said, okay. And then I went there, and I looked around and saw it was a bit different way of working. And then I said to Bob, I’m Nicola. You need someone? I’m here. You just have to tell me what to do. And then he said, I will. (laughs) And then he did.

From that first moment, there was a connection. And it worked. He could talk very well, but he was not the person with a lot of talking in rehearsals. He was always doing. And he always said, I have to see it. And I think I could understand him with no words. I understood what he thought and what he was imagining and his general idea, because what I always admired, have admired, and still admire, is that he can always find the essential: the essential of feeling, the essential of expression, the essential of a story. And he can reduce it to a very abstract form or image or scene where you can experience the essence of this topic or emotion or situation. And that’s really fascinating.

You came to Houston with Bob in 1992 to stage his Parsifal at HGO.

Yes, I was there with my little baby son. He was 13 weeks old. It was my first time in the United States. What I remember is that I liked very much the different way of working because it’s very professional. I mean, in Germany, there are also professionals, but it’s a different approach. In Houston, if there is a problem, you can talk about the problem, and then everyone is interested to find a solution. In Germany, when there is a problem and you talk about the problem, most time you spend finding out who is not responsible for the problem. (laughs) It’s your fault. Nein, it’s not my fault, it’s yours. You can spend hours with that in Europe.

Tell us about how you see Messiah. 

It’s a spiritual journey through all the human emotions. And it’s told by the story of the Messiah: waiting for the Messiah, the Messiah is arriving, and what happens with the passion and resurrection, which are symbols for suffering, but also for hope. But there is no Messiah on stage who is experiencing all that. They are people with no names. There are no characters in Messiah. They are just voices. And the voices always tell the same story, at a different point, from a different point of view. And everyone, in his or her aria, has a different reflection on one step in this journey.

You and Bob have both said that when directing, you try to make space to enjoy the music—that comes first.

Very often in the theater, especially an opera theater, it’s very, very busy on stage. There’s a lot going on. But also, the music is complex, and sometimes it’s hard to see and experience everything at the same time. The way Bob is—well, was—seeing the world and the theater, it looks like not much happening. And a lot is happening, but it’s all in small steps and in fine detail differences. So, the light is changing, and you don’t see it. It’s something you see changing like the atmosphere. You can listen better—or you have more space—because your system is not so busy. You have moments where it’s more contemplation, and you can really concentrate. You have some free space in your mind for your own feelings, your own ideas. And you’re not totally filled up with other people’s ideas.

THERE ARE NO CHARACTERS IN MESSIAH. THEY ARE JUST VOICES. AND THE VOICES ALWAYS TELL THE SAME STORY, AT A DIFFERENT POINT, FROM A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW."