Susan McClary, Professor, Department of Music<\/p>\n
(University of Michigan Press<\/a>) Recognized as one of the most innovative and influential directors of our time, Peter Sellars has produced acclaimed\u2014and often controversial\u2014versions of many beloved operas and oratorios. He has also collaborated with several composers, including John C. Adams and Kaija Saariaho, to create challenging new operas. The Passions of Peter Sellars<\/em>\u00a0follows the development of his style, beginning with his interpretations of the Mozart-Da Ponte operas, proceeding to works for which he assembled the libretti and even the music, and concluding with his celebrated stagings of Bach\u2019s passions with the Berlin Philharmonic.<\/p>\n Many directors leave the musical aspects of opera entirely to the singers and conductor. Sellars, however, immerses himself in the score, and has created a distinctive visual vocabulary to embody musical gesture on stage, drawing on the energies of the music as he shapes characters, ensemble interaction, and large-scale dramatic trajectories. As a leading scholar of gender and music, and the history of opera, Susan McClary is ideally positioned to illuminate Sellars\u2019s goal to address both the social tensions embodied in these operas as well as the spiritual dimensions of operatic performance. McClary considers Sellars\u2019s productions of Mozart\u2019s\u00a0Le nozze di Figaro<\/em>,\u00a0Don Giovanni<\/em>, and\u00a0Cos\u00ec fan tutte<\/em>; Handel\u2019s\u00a0Theodora<\/em>; Messiaen\u2019s\u00a0Saint Fran\u00e7ois d\u2019Assise<\/em>; John C. Adams\u2019s\u00a0Nixon in China<\/em>,\u00a0The Death of Klinghoffer<\/em>,\u00a0El Ni\u00f1o<\/em>, and\u00a0Doctor Atomic<\/em>; Kaija Saariaho\u2019s\u00a0L\u2019amour de loin<\/em>,\u00a0La Passion de Simone<\/em>, and\u00a0Only the Sound Remains<\/em>; Purcell\u2019s\u00a0The Indian Queen<\/em>; and Bach\u2019s passions of Saint Matthew and Saint John. Approaching Sellars\u2019s theatrical strategies from a musicological perspective, McClary blends insights from theater, film, and literary scholarship to explore the work of one of the most brilliant living interpreters of opera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Susan McClary, Professor, Department of Music<\/p>\n