Fiona Shaw, Tony Randall, Isabella Rossellini and Jeremy Geidt will perform as readers in the world premiere of Robert Wilson's The Days Before: Death, Destruction and Detroit III, conceived, designed and directed by Wilson and playing July 7-10 at Lincoln Center Festival '99.

The musical theatre piece will draw from Western mythologies of the apocalypse and Umberto Eco's novel "The Island of the Day Before." Music for the production is composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who wrote the film score for "The Last Emperor" and is a founder of Yellow Magic Orchestra, an influential technopop group formed in 1978.

"Rather than making another statement about the end of the world," Wilson wrote in his notes for a summer 1998 workshop of the piece, "this work is more involved with retrieving messages from the history of revelations. There are two acts and twelve scenes. Each act contains six scenes. Knee plays will take place between each scene. The performance is approximately 200 minutes in length."

The Days Before is third and final installment of Wilson's Death, Destruction & Detroit trilogy, and will mark his first New York world premiere since 1986. Wilson's work usually premieres in France or Germany, before making the trip to New York.

The costumes and props are by Jacques Reynaud and Hans Thiemann; lighting is by Robert Wilson and A.J. Weissbard. Peter Bottazzi collaborated in set design and images. -- By Sean McGrath