The American director Peter Sellars will deliver the keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 2019 Salzburg Festival on July 27, 2019.

Sellars will deliver a speech entitled “Listening to the Ocean: Planetary Change and Cultural Action – The meaning and urgency of ‘ecological civilization’ in the next generation.”

In a press release, Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler noted, “Peter Sellars is the ideal speaker, or, more correctly, the ideal speaker to rouse us from our lethargy in these turbulent, disturbing times in world politics. Amidst World War I, Max Reinhardt imagined the Salzburg Festival, deeply convinced of the power of art. This very conviction also lends Peter Sellars’ productions their power.”

Sellars has been directed numerous productions at the Salzburg Festival since 1992 with productions including Messiaen’s “Saint François d’Assise,” “La clemenza di Tito,” and “Idomeneo” this season. He has also directed productions at the Dutch National Opera, the English National Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Paris Opéra and the San Francisco Opera.

Artist Director Markus Hinterhäuser noted, “Peter Sellars is one of the artists who showed me what musical theatre can be – and must be. He believes in the power of the arts to move us, overwhelming us with his curiosity and his enthusiasm, time and again. I am fascinated by the seriousness, honesty and insistency with which Peter Sellars reflects upon our world, probing great works of art for their meaning here and now.”