Opera Director Yuval Sharon in Conversation with Helga Davis

About the Video

In the middle of lockdown, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Yuval Sharon, newly appointed as Michigan Opera Theatre‘s Artistic Director, staged a drive-through experience of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung in a Detroit parking garage. For the founder and Artistic Director of The Industry, an experimental opera company based in Los Angeles that develops immersive musical experiences, this type of production was nothing out-of-the-ordinary. He had already directed operas staged in moving vehicles, at a railway station, and at other untraditional venues. Yet during the pandemic, this creative approach to presenting music became all the more crucial. Sharon discusses this and more with Unmasking the Arts host Helga Davis.

“What we really need to cultivate in our lives more than anything is a sense of solidarity with each other…and I really do think that’s where the arts are going to be crucial when we come back: trying to rebuild that sense of solidarity.”

—Yuval Sharon