How can a director’s choices bring fresh perspectives to centuries-old operas and plays? What kinds of creative processes do theater directors engage with as they plan their productions? And, more generally, how can the arts act as catalysts for social change? The Library is delighted to welcome Peter Sellars, one of the leading living figures of theatrical history. From setting Così fan tutte in a diner in Cape Cod and The Marriage of Figaro in a luxury apartment in Trump Tower), to having worked with artists such as Warhol and received praise from critics such as Edward Said, Sellars’ groundbreaking stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays have made him one of the most compelling director of our times. Discover his method of breaking into art, forging a theater of the present.
Sellars will speak in conversation with writer and translator Yasmine Seale.
Please note that in-person registration to this event is now full. Online registration is still available.
Learn more:
Among Sellars’s most famous productions was his late-1980s staging of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, which Sellars set in New York City’s East Harlem. Watch a recording of the production.
Last year, Sellars directed a production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde at the Opéra Bastille. See him describe his vision for that production.
Yasmine Seale appeared at the Library last year to speak with author Kate Briggs. Rewatch their discussion.
About the speakers:
Peter Sellars is an internationally acclaimed director. He is best known for his innovative interpretations of operatic masterpieces. Since 1988, Sellars has been a professor at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures / Dance. His production of Vincenzo Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda will be performed Opéra Bastille in February and March of 2024. Book your tickets here!
Yasmine Seale is a writer whose work includes poetry, criticism, translation and visual art. Her essays on literature, art and film have appeared in many places, including Harper’s, The Nation, Paris Review, and the Times Literary Supplement. Among her books are Agitated Air: Poems After Ibn Arabi (Tenement Press), a collaboration with Robin Moger, and The Annotated Arabian Nights (W. W. Norton), described by the New Yorker as “an electric new translation”. She is currently a fellow of the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
The Entre Nous series is co-organized by Columbia Global Centers | Paris, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, and the American Library in Paris.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (the speakers will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
