Prokofiev’s ‘The Gambler’ – director Peter Sellars makes a winning bet

Sean Panikkar, Nicole Chirka Blanche and Michael Arivony in the 2024 Salzburg Festival’s production of ‘The Gambler’ (photo: Ruth Walz)

When the Salzburg festival mounted a production of Sergei Prokofiev’s “The Gambler” in 2024, it wasn’t the usual gamble. Audiences don’t flock to the composer’s operas because they’re grim, often surrealistic, and the music is unruly, spiky, and hard on the ears. Peter Sellars, the out director with spiky hair whose ideas once seemed radical, staged the production in a deft balance of naturalistic acting and surreal stage pictures, and it worked splendidly.

 THE PETER PRINCIPLE I say that with a kind of relief, of something like joy. Any director with Sellars’ now-lengthy history is bound to have some productions that are ringers. But he’s never been dow