Word: sellarsization
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It's this musty, dusty atmosphere of doom that director Peter Sellars '80 is trying to drive away with his production of Handel's Julius Caesar. Updated, polished, and stocked chock full of yucks, in Sellar's hands this baroque warhorse becomes a close cousin of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta...
Soprano Susan Larson, as the Naughty Nymphet of the Nile, carries off her dramatic duties with the most distinction, particularly when you consider the tough role, the skimpy costumes, and fact that Sellars makes Larson crawl on the ground blindfolded--still singing, mind you--for the first half of Act...
IN HIS program notes, Sellars announces right off the bat that he is bringing as light a touch as possible to what is ostensibly some serious dramatic business: Caesar arrives in Egypt and is seduced by the lips and legs of Cleopatra, who wants his aid in deposing her brother...
Those with personalities just this side of the grave will cough, teeter, then collapse at the indignities Sellars has wrought upon the story. But all of Handel's operas are dramatic dogs anyway--there is nothing a director could do to the script to make the spectacle any less unbelievable...
Sellars obeys that old saw among directors pressed to be innovative: "When in doubt, update." Caesar is now the President of the US, Ptolemy is young Khaddaffi clone, the stage is a partially completed Hotel Cairo (the orchestra pit doubles as a swimming pool), and references to oil politics, game...