Peter Sellars
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Peter Sellars | |
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Born | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States | September 27, 1957
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Theatre director, professor |
Peter Sellars (born September 27, 1957) is an American
Biography
Early life
Sellars was born in
Sellars's additional productions included Shakespeare's
Career
In the summer of 1980, Sellars staged a production in New Hampshire of Don Giovanni, with the cast, costumed and presented to resemble a blaxploitation film as part of the Monadnock Music Festival in Manchester, New Hampshire. Opera News described it as "an act of artistic vandalism". In the winter of 1980, Sellars's production of George Frideric Handel's Orlando, again at the American Repertory Theatre, was set in outer space. Later, Sellars studied theatre and related arts in Japan, China, and India.[citation needed]
In 1981, Sellars worked on a project with
Sellars served as director of the Boston Shakespeare Company for the 1983–1984 season. His productions included
Sellars was the original director of the 1983 Broadway musical My One and Only, a revival of the George & Ira Gershwin show Funny Face. However, the avant-garde approach of Sellars and librettist Timothy Mayer clashed with the more traditional take of star Tommy Tune, who eventually took over as the director. As Sellars told The New York Times, it was a struggle "between the forces of Brecht and the forces of The Pajama Game."[8]
In 1984, Sellars was named director and manager of the American National Theater at the
Sellars was Artistic Director of the 1990 and 1993 Los Angeles Festivals.]
Sellars directed one feature film, The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez, a silent color film starring Joan Cusack, Peter Gallagher, Ron Vawter, and Mikhail Baryshnikov. He co-wrote and was featured in Jean-Luc Godard's film of the Shakespeare play King Lear.
The
Sellars also staged Handel's opera
Later career
Sellars was the librettist for the opera Doctor Atomic composed by John Adams.[18]
In August 2006, he directed a staged performance of
In 2007, Sellars delivered the "State of Cinema" address at the 50th
In early 2009, Sellars co-curated a
In 2011, Sellars directed a production of John Adams's opera
Sellars wrote the libretto for John Adams's opera Girls of the Golden West.[21]
In 2019, Sellars gave the keynote address at the Salzburg Festival.[22] It coincided with his staging of Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, conducted by Teodor Currentzis.[citation needed]
Sellars is a professor at the University of California Los Angeles.[23]
In 2021, Sellars donated his archive to the Getty Research Institute.[24]
Reception
Sellars was criticized for straying too far from composers' intentions in 1997 by György Ligeti.[25]
In 1998, Sellars was awarded the Erasmus Prize for "combining in his original creations the European and American cultural traditions".[26] In 2001, he was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal.[27] In 2005, Sellars was awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, given annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life."[28] In 2014, alongside Chuck Berry, Sellars was awarded the Polar Music Prize.[29]
The German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf said of Sellars, "I have seen what he has done, and it is criminal. As my husband used to say, so far no one has dared go into the Louvre Museum to spray graffiti on the Mona Lisa, but some opera directors are spraying graffiti over masterpieces."[30]
Sellars's long-time collaborator John Adams has called him an "intensely serious and sophisticated artist with the moral zeal of an abolitionist."[31]
The Palestinian-American academic, literary critic and political activist Edward Said described Sellars as an "extraordinarily gifted man". In a 1989 review of Sellars's productions of Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte and The Marriage of Figaro, Said wrote that the "turns that Sellars rings on Mozart's courtly operas make you wonder why wooden delicacy and affectations of authenticity have satisfied us for so long. We learn through Sellars that they never did satisfy us, not just because their silly conventions leave Mozart untouched but also because they protect the laziness and incompetence of most opera companies." In 1996, Said characterized Sellars's Covent Garden staging of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler as "compelling and brilliant in conception" and "deliberately uncompromising in its appeal to a late-twentieth-century audience".[32]
References
Notes
- ^ Battle, Laura (November 7, 2014). "Peter Sellars talks about his spiritual side". www.ft.com.
- ISBN 978-1-350-02174-7.
- ^ Ridenour, Al (2002-05-16). "The Automated Andy Warhol Is Reprogrammed". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-08-04.
- ^ Magazine, Smithsonian; McGreevy, Nora. "Hear an A.I.-Generated Andy Warhol 'Read' His Diary to You in New Documentary". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2023-08-04.
- ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2023-08-04.
- ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2023-08-09.
- ^ "Peter Sellars". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2023-08-04.
- ^ Shewey, Don (May 1, 1983). "HOW 'MY ONE AND ONLY' CAME TO BROADWAY". The New York Times. Retrieved December 7, 2022.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-09-07.
- ^ Brown, Joe (13 June 1986). "'Ajax': A Murky Muddle". The Washington Post. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
- ^ Braxton, Greg (1990-08-31). "The Artist at the Helm : Can Festival Director Peter Sellars Pull It Off on Vision Alone?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
- ^ Haithman, Diane (1993-06-05). "Scaled-Down L.A. Festival Loses International Artists : Arts: On the positive side, artistic director Peter Sellars says that 'the whole world is in L.A., and the festival is actually going to prove that.'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
- ^ Rockwell, John (July 18, 1985). "Opéra: Mozart's 'Cosi fan tutte'". New York Times. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
- ^ Rockwell, John (July 15, 1988). "A Sellarized 'Figaro' in First Performance". New York Times. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
- ISBN 0-7190-6183-0.
- ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
- ^ Attilio Favorini. Memory in Play: from Aeschylus to Sam Shepard, pp. 56–58 (2008)
- ^ "Doctor Atomic". earbox. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-09-05.
- ^ Westphal, Matthew (15 November 2006). "Photo Journal: John Adams's A Flowering Tree Premieres at New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna". Playbill. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
- ^ Press release, San Francisco Opera to Present World Premiere of "Girls of the Golden West" Archived 2016-06-17 at the Wayback Machine, San Francisco Opera, 14 June 2016, accessed 15 June 2016
- ^ "Blog • Peter Sellars to Deliver Keynote Address at the Opening of the 2019 Salzburg Festival". Salzburger Festspiele. 2019-05-17. Retrieved 2020-12-27.
- ^ "Peter Sellars". www.wacd.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2023-08-04.
- ^ "Archive of Celebrated Stage Director Peter Sellars Comes to Getty". www.getty.edu. Retrieved 2023-08-04.
- ^ Tom Service, "Ligeti's Riot Through History", The Guardian (London), August 27, 2009
- ^ "Erasmusprijswinnaars". Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
- ^ "History of the Harvard Arts Medal". Harvard University Office for the Arts. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
- ^ The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize Archived 2013-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, official website.
- ^ "Peter Sellars — Polar Music Prize". www.polarmusicprize.org. Retrieved 2023-09-04.
- ^ Newsweek interview, 15 October 1990
- ISBN 978-0-374-28115-1.
- ISBN 978-0-7475-9778-0.
Sources
- Favorini, Attilio. 2003. "History, Collective Memory, and Aeschylus' Persians." Theatre Journal 55:1 (March): 99–111.
- Meyer-Thoss, Gottfried, Extrakte. Peter Sellars – Amerikanisches Welttheater, Parthas Verlag Berlin, 2004
External links
- Peter Sellars at IMDb