The undaunted radicalism of the director Peter Sellars
Renowned theater director and UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures/Dance professor, Peter Sellars, has spent the last 30 years directing stage productions around the world, usually seeking to punch home some contemporary relevance with his updated interpretations of classic works of theater. The Financial Times sat down with Sellars in his home to discuss his work over the past three decades and what's next.
"Sitting in a glass pavilion halfway up the staircase at the Royal Festival Hall feels like being part of an art installation. As the audience file past on their way up to the evening’s concert, are they going to stop and stare at the interviewee? With his very distinctive hairstyle, a fixture since he first appeared on the scene, Peter Sellars is hard to miss.
Theatre director Peter Sellars photographed at home in Culver City, California © Alex Welsh
In those 30 years, has he really changed? The look is much the same and Sellars’s style of directing, usually seeking to punch home some contemporary relevance, feels as cutting-edge as ever. “Most people still think I am 19 years old,” says the 61-year-old, part-exasperated, part-mystified. “They still see me as an enfant terrible.”
It was in the late 1980s that the Pittsburgh-born Sellars shot to international attention with productions of Mozart’s three great comic operas. He updated them all, delivering scalding, up-to-the-minute messages for 1980s America about race, drugs, sexual inequality and more. Le nozze di Figaro was set in Trump Tower (top marks for foresight there) and showed a property tycoon aggressively foisting himself on women. This was radical for the US and the productions divided opinion, acclaimed by many, vilified by some. If we believe those who were outraged, Sellars was not the only one with his hair standing on end by the final curtain.
Opera has moved on since then. All kinds of extreme productions have pushed the boundaries to breaking point, but Sellars has steadfastly kept to his brief. People may question whether his political messages always work. Nobody, though, ever came out of a Sellars production saying, “What was the point of that?”"— Richard Fairman, May 3, 2019
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Financial Times website.
Hear Peter Sellars discuss what it means to make something from nothing.
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