Peter Sellars

Réflexion sur l'oeuvre de Peter Sellars qui suscita la controverse lors de ses premiers spectacles dans les années 80. Cette étude traduit la diversité des genres abordés (opéra et théâtre) mais aussi la variété des angles d'approche. Se présente en trois parties introduites chacune par un de ses textes et des propos recueillis auprès de ses principaux collaborateurs.

As an enfant terrible or a wunderkind of the stage, a rebel to some or a brilliant innovator to others, Peter Sellars has provoked controversy from the time of his earliest productions in the 1980s. References to contemporary America update tarnished classics of the theatre and reinvigorate the frozen conventions of opera. Yet, beyond such immediately apparent moves, Sellars associates directing with a deeper questioning of cultural values and habits of perception. Here, creation is inseparable from critique, and art is indissociable from its existential function. Invention in the aesthetic realm marks an intervention in the life of each spectator.
. Still open to its own future, Sellars'work is fueled by the experiences of his contemporaries, resonates with historical memory and extends into a transcendent universe. However, the seeming contradiction between a political slant and a spiritual quest cannot obscure the profound consistency of his vision. Nor do the bifurcations between the establishment and its margins, or the oscillation between America and Europe remain irreconcilable differences. They parallel the bridges stretched between the arts, the communication between diverse cultures, the friction between secular traditions and cutting-edge technologies. Ultimately, what emerges is a new and global way of thinking of theatre. This thinking is mobilized in practice as acting - performing and taking action. Thus, the stage reflects and interrogates the world in its full complexity. Rather than reducing, it reopens and enlarges the field of debate. It questions without affirming and stimulates a multiplicity of dialogues without closure.
. The reader will not find definitive answers in this collection, which draws together studies by a team of anglophone and French contributors, with previously unpublished writings of the director and his close collaborators. Instead, the reader can expect an invitation to engage with these dialogues in writing and image, and to feel their urgent necessity for the art and society of tomorrow. .