interview in the first intermission, Sellars referred to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak, which took place in Cairo on the previous day, comparing it to the momentous time when President Richard Nixon first met with Mao Tse-tung in Peking, opening diplomatic and trade relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. In Summer 2011 he directed the opera Griselda at the Santa Fe Opera in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2011, Sellars's work was documented in John Freeman's book, The Greatest Shows on Earth: World Theatre from Peter Brook to the Sydney Olympics. Libri: Oxford (). For his collected work in the field of opera and music productions, Sellars was awarded the prestigious Swedish Polar Music Prize of 2014, alongside Chuck Berry. Sellars wrote the libretto for John Adams's opera Girls of the Golden West. In 2019 Sellars gave the keynote address at the Salzburg Festival. The speech was entitled “Listening to the Ocean: Planetary Change and Cultural Action – The meaning and urgency of ‘ecological civilization’ in the next generation”. The address coincided with his staging of Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, conducted by Teodor Currentzis. Classical music critic Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times wrote of the production "In Idomeneo, "Mozart lets us listen to the ocean, and for Sellars, this becomes a warning that our oceans are again angry. Climate change has altered their form, and plastics have toxified their substance." Sellars is a professor at the University of California Los Angeles. Reception Sellars has been criticized for straying too far from composers' intentions. György Ligeti was deeply upset at Sellars's 1997 production of his Le Grand Macabre at the Salzburg Festival. Ligeti, however, was present for the majority of the rehearsals and only complained directly to the press a few days before the opening, causing suspicion that he was only courting controversy for publicity purposes. On the other hand, Kaija Saariaho has stated that Sellars's design for the Salzburg and Santa Fe Opera productions of her 2000 opera L'amour de loin was in harmony with her imagination of the set. Sellars again worked with Saariaho in directing the 2006 Paris, and 2008 Helsinki and Santa Fe presentations of her second opera, Adriana Mater. As one review put it, In the TV interview Saariaho named director Sellars as the hero of the performance. Aside from the bitter and violent war events, Sellars