Renowned theatre director Peter Sellers on How to End A War
The British Academy and The University of Manchester present…
Renowned Theatre Director Peter Sellars on “How to End a War: The Living and the Dead Working Together in Baroque Opera”.
Tuesday 4 February 2025, 6pm at Cosmo Rodewald Hall, Martin Harris Centre, The University of Manchester.
Dive into the compelling world of Baroque opera and discover how it has historically been a medium for promoting equality and reconciliation.
The history of opera is charged with urgent, daring, and compassionate strategies that were often deployed to soften hard hearts. It had the power to create and propose unexpectedly evolving structures of equality and reconciliation, with five generations of European artists who fed the imaginary of civil societies with seeds of democratic possibilities. Enlightenment operas by Rameau, Mozart, and Handel prophetically argued for the future of democracy in a European context, which did in fact arrive in the coming decades. This lecture will call out specific operas from the 18th century to address working projects now being proposed by contemporary artists that span cultures, histories, and futures.
Peter Sellars is celebrated globally for his transformative interpretations of classical works and his advocacy of contemporary music. As a Distinguished Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, Sellars has illuminated the role of art in addressing societal issues. He is a recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the MacArthur Fellowship and the Erasmus Prize for contributions to European culture.
Delivered by the most outstanding academics in the UK and beyond, the British Academy’s flagship Lecture programme showcases the very best scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. This event is part of the Aspects of Art Lecture Series, first delivered in 1916.