He plays the speaking role of a character named the Wanderer, who offers brief introductions to each act and occasionally comments on the action.
To clarify the transitions between acts for the audience, Sharon has enlisted 87-year-old George Shirley, a Detroit resident and a legendary figure in music as the first black tenor to star at the Metropolitan Opera. No pauses will be needed for scene changes because the set, designed by John Conklin, is minimalist to an extreme: an elevated, revolving turntable, a wood-and-steel door frame, and an abstract painted backdrop. "It's so short, and so fast, it goes by in a second, like youth," he said. The opera, which Sharon noted contains less than two hours of music, is being presented without intermission. "I've enjoyed finishing rehearsals and feeling lighter as opposed to feeling, 'Oh, I love this piece but I'm in tears,'" he said. "Here, there's a shock, there's death, and then you find out what happened and you rise from the ashes. "In the original order you start from a point of such high entertainment and then descend into the inevitability of death," he said. Once in Detroit, he offered a condensed version of Wagner's "Götterdämmerung" to be viewed by spectators driving slowly through a parking garage.īut listening to Sharon's vision and getting to work on the piece in rehearsal has changed his view.
As founder of The Industry in Los Angeles, he staged new work on freeways, city streets and in a train station.
Sharon, who became the company's artistic director during the pandemic, has a history of unconventional approaches to opera. "By putting the opera in reverse order," Sharon said in an interview, "we get to really emphasize that of course they're going to face death, disappointment and betrayal, but it's all worth it because there's a moment where we're completely alive and electrified by falling in love." So Mimi dies near the beginning, and then returns to life for the remainder of the opera, which ends on a high note (literally, a high C) as she and her new lover walk off into the Parisian night together. His production opening this weekend at the Detroit Opera plays the four acts backwards.
DETROIT (AP) - The man who staged Wagner in a parking garage and put his audience in stretch limos to watch an opera while driving around Los Angeles is now turning his hand to a staple of the repertory.Īnd, typically, Yuval Sharon's version of Puccini's "La Boheme" won't be like any other you may have seen.
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