FACES FOR THE NINETIES : Who will be the faces to watch in the performing arts in the 1990s? Nothing’s for certain, of course, but based on their previous work, Calendar’s critics and writers have selected these individuals in the areas of music, stage and dance, and performance: : PETER SELLARS

Suddenly, in the past year, one has seen Peter Sellars popping up all over Los Angeles. And this is a big city, the hyperkinetic stage director/impresario and artistic director of the 1990 Los Angeles Festival likes to point out.

At concerts, at stage events, at trendy venues and in unpretentious locales, the impish, ever-smiling Sellars appears. As heir to the title of arts festival director--originally held by Robert Fitzpatrick during the Olympic Arts Festival in 1984, Sellars in a sense is a new Fitzpatrick--he is always out looking for new talent and new tastes for Angelenos to sample.

But Sellars’ view differs from Fitzpatrick’s in that he tends to be less European-oriented and more interested in Los Angeles’ role among the Pacific nations. He sees the future of the city tied to the economies and the arts of the Pacific.

At the moment, he is completing the complicated lineup of artists and attractions to appear at this year’s festival--the three-weekend, two-week extravaganza now scheduled, all over the city, Sept. 1-17. And it promises, he promises, a populist tone, with an emphasis on local, Latin and Asian arts.

The festival’s budget, he reports, is now back to $5.5 million, thanks to a pledge of $2 million from the Japanese Business Assn.

Sellars has been an active stage director for two decades. His controversial, sometimes breathtaking, updatings of traditional operatic fare--from Handel and Mozart through Wagner and Gilbert & Sullivan--have raised purists’ hackles. “Typically excessive” is a typical dismissal of his work, yet he has been called a genius, and many in the critical fraternity insist on taking him seriously.