Bayreuth’s American lands big job
mainDetroit-based Michigan Opera Theatre has just named Yuval Sharon, 40, as its Artistic Director, with a reconceived climas of Wagner’s Ring to be staged in the company’s parking lot next month.
Chicago-born to Israeli parents, Sharon rose rapidly though collaborations with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, making an acclaimed debut at Bayreuth with Lohengrin in 2018. He succeeds MOT founder David DiChiera, who died two years ago.
This is such significant arts news that I came off the bench to write it up for my former paper, the Detroit Free Press. Folks wondering why he’s coming to Detroit and context about the city’s opera company will find it here: https://www.freep.com/in-depth/entertainment/arts/2020/09/09/yuval-sharon-michigan-opera-theatre/5745244002/
Mark Stryker – great article! A chamber version of Goetterdammerung??? Mein Gott!
Agreed, great article, I wish him and Detroit the best. And a new DSO conductor as well. Better days to come!
Performed in America’s greatest contribution to humanity (outside of jazz): parking lots. I think they should project on to a drive-in screen.
I am pleased to read that Detroit poet Marsha Music will be associated with this first production under Sharon. She is an excellent resource.
She participated in a lovely collaboration with the Akropolis Reed Quintet and composer Jeff Scott earlier this summer.
Best wishes to Michigan Opera Theater in these trying times.
Please stay in the U.S. and A.!
Congrats to Yuval, but is Michigan Opera Theatre really considered a big job?
This is good news. I’m sure some novel things will be done. But the context is also important if we want to understand opera in the USA. Detroit (home of the Michigan Opera) ranks 320th in the world for opera performances per year. Last season it did only 20 performances.
It’s misleading to not mention this context in grandiose articles about Yuval Sharon’s hiring. It leaves the impression that Detroit has achieved a sort of world status in opera when in reality the paltry funding and tiny season will greatly limit what he achieves.
If journalists occasionally failed to mention these larger contexts created by our isolated funding system, that would be one thing, but when they are consistently omitted it becomes propaganda by omission.
Nothing wrong with Mr. Sharon but I don’t think Detroit is a welcoming city for the avante-garde in music. Perhaps a bad fit?
Appearing in the parking lot as the Niebelungs: the People of Wal-Mart. As the Gibichungs: selected local MAGAts.