Peter Sellars has gained international recognition for his groundbreaking and transformative interpretations of classics, advocacy of 20th-century and contemporary music, and collaborative projects with an extraordinary range of creative and performing artists. He has staged operas at the Dutch National Opera, English National Opera, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg Festival, Opéra National de Paris, and San Francisco Opera, among others. Mr. Sellars collaborated on the creation of many works with composers John Adams and Kaija Saariaho, and has staged works by Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti, Paul Hindemith, Osvaldo Golijov, and Tan Dun. Recent productions include a staging of Heinrich Schutz’s Musikalische Exequien for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Paris Opera, Tyshawn Sorey’s Perle Noire: Meditations for Josephine at the Dutch National Opera, a concert staging of Adriana Mater as part of his multi-year collaboration with Esa-Pekka Salonen at the San Francisco Symphony, and a production of Charpentier’s Médée at Berlin State Opera with Simon Rattle. Earlier in 2024, Mr. Sellars created a new production of Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda for the Paris Opera.

Mr. Sellars is a distinguished professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, a curator of the Telluride Film Festival, and was a mentor for the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Erasmus Prize for contributions to European culture, Gish Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been awarded the Polar Music Prize and been named Artist of the Year by Musical America. In 2021 he was honored with the EBU-IMZ Lifetime Achievement Award for his body of opera video recordings.

Alonzo King, founder and artistic director of Alonzo King LINES Ballet, is a visionary choreographer altering the way we look and think about movement. He calls his works “thought structures” created by the manipulation of energies that exist in matter through laws, which govern the shapes and movement directions of everything that exists. Alonzo King LINES Ballet has been guided by his unique artistic vision since 1982.

Mr. King has works in the repertories of the world’s leading ballet and modern companies and has collaborated with distinguished visual artists, musicians, and composers around the globe. His work has been recognized for its impact on the cultural fabric of the company’s home in San Francisco, as well as internationally by the dance world’s most prestigious institutions.

Named a Master of Choreography by the Kennedy Center in 2005, Mr. King is the recipient of a NEA Choreographer’s Fellowship, Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award, United States Artists Award in Dance, Bessie Award, and the National Dance Project’s Residency and Touring Awards. In 2015 he received the Doris Duke Artist Award in recognition of his ongoing contributions to the advancement of contemporary dance. Joining historic icons in the field, Mr. King was named one of America’s “Irreplaceable Dance Treasures” by the Dance Heritage Coalition. He is a former San Francisco commissioner and a writer and speaker on humanity and art. A recipient of the San Francisco Arts Medallion Award, and an inductee in the California Hall of Fame, Mr. King holds honorary doctorates from Dominican University, California Institute of the Arts, and the Juilliard School.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet is a celebrated contemporary ballet company that has been guided since 1982 by the unique artistic vision of Alonzo King. Alonzo King LINES Ballet has collaborated with noted composers, musicians, and visual artists from around the world to create performances that alter the way we look at ballet today. Its unique artistic vision adheres to the classical form—the linear, mathematical, and geometrical principles that are deeply rooted in the pre-existing East–West continuum.

This season Mary Elizabeth Williams debuted at Santa Fe Opera as the Foreign Princess in Rusalka and joined the cast of Un Ballo in Maschera at the Metropolitan Opera. Other recent engagements include Isolde in Tristan und Isolde at Seattle Opera and in Peter Sellars’s production at Paris Opera, as well as the title role of Aïda at Cincinnati Opera and Bielefeld Opera in Germany. She made a house debut at Theater an der Wien as Serena in Porgy and Bess, a role she has also sung at La Scala and Seattle Opera and recorded with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg. Other recent role debuts include Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, which she sang at Teatro Pergolesi in Jesi and Teatro Coccia in Novara, Italy. She has also appeared with Opéra Dijon, Opéra de Lille, Welsh National Opera, and Deutsche Oper am Rhein, as well as with the Atlanta Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, and France’s Festival St. Denis. She makes her San Francisco Symphony debut with these performances.

Originally from Philadelphia, Ms. Williams graduated from Luther College in Iowa, after which she joined Seattle Opera’s Young Artist Program. She made her Seattle mainstage debut as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and in 2012 won the Artist of the Year title, determined by the Seattle audience. She was a member of Centre de Formation Lyrique at the Paris Opera, where she won the Lyric Artist prize and was also awarded first prize in the Concours Clermont-Ferrand. She now lives in Milan with her husband, tenor Lorenzo Decaro.

Seth Reiser is a New York–based lighting and set designer working in theatre, dance, opera, and music. His interest in design is rooted in the extraordinary effect that the environment surrounding an event has in shaping our understanding of it in the natural or unnatural world. He is interested in framing and telling stories and his work is characterized by an elemental approach to light through simplicity, constrained color palettes, and the use of space and scenery to create textures and focal interest.

His credits include Alisa Weilerstein’s Fragments, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer; esperanza spalding’s Twelve Spells; Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus, directed by Peter Sellars; Come & Back Again, with David Dorfman Dance; King Lear, directed by Kevin Moriarty; and The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, by Mike Daisey and directed by Jean Michele Gregory. He also designs regularly for the SF Symphony’s SoundBox.

A native of Houston, Mr. Reiser holds an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of Design for Stage and Film and a BA from Ohio Wesleyan University, where he studied theater, philosophy, and fine art.