Everything about Peter Sellars totally explained
» For the British actor of a similar name, see Peter Sellers.
Peter Sellars (born
September 27,
1957) is an
American theater director, renowned for his modern stagings of classical
operas and plays. Sellars is professor of
World Arts and Culture
at
U.C.L.A. where he teaches
Art as Social Action and
Art as Moral Action.
Sellars was born in
Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, and attended
Phillips Academy and, subsequently,
Harvard University, graduating in
1981. As an undergraduate, he performed a puppet version of
Wagner's Ring cycle, and directed a minimalist production of
Anton Chekhov's
Three Sisters, with mature birch trees on the stage apron at Loeb Drama Center and Chopin Nocturnes played on a concert grand piano seen through a suspended gauze box set. Sellars' production of
Antony and Cleopatra in the swimming pool of Harvard's Adams House brought press attention well beyond campus, as did the subsequent techno-industrial production of
King Lear which included a Lincoln Continental on-stage and ambient musical moods by the
Steel Cello Ensemble. In his senior year, he staged a production of Gogol's Inspector General at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. This was followed during the summer of 1980 by staging of Don Giovanni performed under the aegis of the Monadnock Music Festival in Manchester, NH, which Opera News hailed as "an act of artistic vandalism". In the winter of 1980, a production of
Handel's
Orlando, again at the American Repertory Theatre in
Cambridge, brought him to national attention -- perhaps because of the novel conceit of setting it in outer space. Later, Sellars studied in
Japan,
China, and
India.
In 1983 and 1984, Sellars served as director of the Boston Shakespeare Company. Among his productions was an influential
Pericles, Prince of Tyre. In 1983 he received a
MacArthur Foundation award. In 1984, he was named director and manager of the American National Theater in
Washington, D.C. at the age of 26, a post he held until 1986.
He was Artistic Director of the 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles Festivals, presenting works of talented artists like the late Iranian director
Reza Abdoh, and playwright
Frank Ambriz.
During his years in Washington, Sellars staged productions of
Count of Monte Cristo, the
James O'Neill version, a production featuring
Richard Thomas,
Patti Lupone,
David Warrilow,
Zakes Mokae, and many other outstanding performers. The production had a set design by
George Tsypin, with costumes by
Dunya Ramicova, and lighting by
James F.Ingalls. He also directed productions of
Idiot's Delight by
Robert Sherwood and
Sophocles's
Ajax, as adapted by
Robert Auletta.
Sellars subsequently staged a series of Mozart's operas,
Cosi Fan Tutte (set in a diner on Cape Cod),
The Marriage of Figaro (set in a luxury apartment in New York City's Trump Tower), and
Don Giovanni (set in New York City's Spanish Harlem), in collaboration with Emmanuel Music and its Artistic Director, Craig Smith. The productions were met with great critical acclaim, were televised by
PBS, and were later revived in
Europe.
Sellars's first feature film,
The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez, was a silent color film starring
Joan Cusack,
Peter Gallagher,
Ron Vawter, and
Mikhail Baryshnikov. He was also featured in
Jean-Luc Godard's film of
King Lear, which he co-scripted.
Sellars has been invited to the
Salzburg and
Glyndebourne Festivals, where he's mounted productions of various
20th century operas, notably
Olivier Messiaen's
St. François d'Assise,
Paul Hindemith's
Mathis der Maler,
György Ligeti's
Le Grand Macabre, and, with choreographer
Mark Morris, the premiere of
John Coolidge Adams' and
Alice Goodman's
Nixon in China and
The Death of Klinghoffer. Other projects in which he's been involved include stagings of Handel's opera
Giulio Cesare and oratorio
Theodora,
Stravinsky's
The Story of a Soldier with the
Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by
Esa-Pekka Salonen,
I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky and
Peony Pavillion.
In 1998, Sellars was awarded the
Erasmus Prize for his work combining European and American cultural traditions in opera and theatre.
One of Sellars' closest musical associates is the composer
John Adams.
Sellars directed
John Adams'
Dr. Atomic for the
San Francisco Opera,
De Nederlandse Opera, and the
Chicago Lyric Opera. This opera about the development of the
atomic bomb received mixed reviews. In August, 2006 he directed a staged performance of
Mozart's unfinished opera
Zaide as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival at
Lincoln Center in New York; the pre-concert discussions were about contemporary slavery and the prospect of abolishing it, as well as Mozart's egalitarianism and opposition to slavery. In late 2006, Sellars also organized the
New Crowned Hope Festival in
Vienna,
Austria as Artistic Director (the festival was part of Vienna
Mozart Year 2006), and directed the premiere John Adams' most recent opera,
A Flowering Tree, also in Vienna.
In 2007, Sellars delivered the State of Cinema Address at the 50th San Francisco International Film Festival on Sunday April 29. The Festival also screened Jon Else's documentary profiling Sellars and the making of Doctor Atomic. Sellars introduced the screenings of
Mahamat Saleh Haroun's
Daratt and Garin Nugroho's
Opera Jawa, two of the New Crowned Hope films.
Sellars has been no stranger to controversy, often criticized for straying too far from the composer's intention.
György Ligeti was deeply upset at Sellars's 1997 production of his
Le Grand Macabre at the
Salzburg Festival. On the other hand,
Kaija Saariaho has stated that Sellars's design for her 2000 opera
L'amour de loin was in harmony with her imagination of the set.
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