Destination: Mozart--A Night At The Opera With Peter Sellars

Peter Sellars, a spike-haired, mild-mannered, outrageously strange opera director, best known for his Nixon in China, is the star and subject of this interesting documentary on Sellar's staging of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi Fan Tutte in modern terms. How modern? Marriage is set in a replica of the Trump Tower, Don Giovanni stars an alcoholic drug addict in the South Bronx, and Cosi takes place in a Long Island diner where the line "let us drink to the God of Love" finds the principals hoisting cans of Miller Lite beer in libationary tribute. Interviews with Sellars and the actors, actresses, set designers, and costume designers involved in the productions are interwoven with scenes from the operas themselves. With the exception of some remarkably tunnel-visioned observations (Sellars calls opera the "ultimate realistic medium," a sentiment that only the most die-hard opera aficionado could identify with; and one of the actresses boldly proclaims the Mozart operas to be "the most personal thing ever written about the way men and women are with one another," an accolade that is as bizarre as it is (most likely) unique), Destination: Mozart is a consistently engaging program that may not exactly win converts to operatic enjoyment, but certainly will extend some people's definition of opera. Highly recommended. (Available from most distributors.)