In August 2006, he directed a staged performance of Mozart's unfinished opera "Zaide" as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center in New York; the pre-concert discussions were about contemporary slavery and the prospect of abolishing it, as well as Mozart's egalitarianism and opposition to slavery. In late 2006, Sellars organized the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, Austria as Artistic Director (the festival was part of Vienna Mozart Year 2006), and directed there the premieres of Saariaho's oratorio "La Passion de Simone" and Adams's most recent opera, "A Flowering Tree", also in Vienna.