Detroit Opera Opens 2022–23 season with Yuval Sharon’s The Valkyries September 17–20

“The latest and greatest technology within our reach helped create a 3D environment stretching beyond the limitations of a conventional theater. Technology is at the heart of this production of The Valkyries, which provokes you to consider the current state of opera in the
digital age”—Yuval Sharon
Photo Credit: Timothy Norris / Los Angeles Philharmonic

Detroit Opera’s 2022–23 season opens September 17–20 with The Valkyries, a unique staging of Act III of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre directed by Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director Yuval Sharon and conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. The Valkyries uses green screen technology to seamlessly blend onstage action with real-time computer graphics and animation, created by Jason Thompson and Kaitlyn Pietras of PXT Studio; in doing so, The Valkyries draws audiences deeper into Wagner’s proto-cinematic vision than ever before. Students from the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit contributed to the animation used in the production.

The Valkyries stars Associate Artistic Director Christine Goerke as Brünnhilde and Alan Held as Wotan, alongside Wendy Bryn Harmer (Sieglinde), Angel Azzarra (Gerhilde), Ann Toomey (Ortlinde) who is a native of Detroit, Tamara Mumford (Waltraute), GeDeane Graham
(Schwertleite), Jessica Faselt (Helmwige), Leah Dexter (Siegrune), Maya Lahyani (Grimgerde), and Krysty Swann (Rossweise).The Valkyries is presented in a co-production with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with whom Sharon staged the production on July 17 at the Hollywood Bowl, with Gustavo Dudamel conducting.

Krysty Swann, of Detroit, plays Rossweisse, one of the fierce Valkyries, daughter of Wotan, Sister of Brünhilde and she rides “hard” to Valhalla taking fallen warriors.

“I am true lover of anything Fantasy/ Sci-Fi, I am a true cinephile and Tron is one of the best films in the genres- so being a part of this Epic production of this Epic Opera is incredibly exciting for me, I’m excited for the audience to experience Opera in this way,”: she said. “I’m super proud to be doing something this Awesome in my legendary hometown!!! So grateful to be back.”

Beginning with a world built in Unreal Engine, a tool typically designed for the video game industry, Sharon worked with Thompson and Pietras to storyboard the piece, using VR headsets to place virtual cameras throughout the digital landscape as if he were a film director
working on location. These virtual cameras —which can be automated, panned, and zoomed with all the flexibility of a physical camera— work in conjunction with five robotic cameras, which capture the performers from a variety of angles onstage in front of a 16-foot green
screen. As the performance unfolds onstage, the feed from the physical cameras and virtual cameras are then synthesized, with real-time video effects used to keep color grading consistent, and to help the performers blend into the virtual environment. The result is a live
film that exists dynamically with the onstage performance, while still being replicable on a shot-for-shot basis; audiences are free to watch the action on-stage and on projection screens simultaneously.

Leah Dexter, plays the role of Siegrune, one of nine total Valkyrie sisters, daughters of the head God in charge, Wotan.

“I’m excited because it’s something totally different and new that has never been done before with this opera or really, opera in general,” the Southfield native said. “Representation and diversity is so important in the opera world and I am happy to be a part of opera’s overall future, how it will continue to develop, and what it is going to look like with all backgrounds of artists being represented, appreciated and lauded.”

“Wagner was a zestful early adopter of technology when it helped him realize his larger-thanlife imagination. And technology is at the heart of this production of The Valkyries, which provokes you to consider the current state of opera in the digital age,” says Sharon. “The latest
and greatest technology within our reach helped create a 3D environment stretching beyond the limitations of a conventional theater. We can shift scale, create arresting perspectives, and articulate the moment-by-moment drama in unprecedented ways. The possibilities promised by this technology can be awe-inspiring – but there remains a tension with the live performance, which is the soul of the work itself. As the piece itself lives in the tension between magic and disillusionment, I hope you will see reflected in this production both
curiosity and caution as to where the art form of opera might be headed. Enjoy the ride!”

“Artists and audiences alike are making new discoveries in opera through Yuval’s unique and engaging lens,” said Detroit Opera President and CEO Wayne S. Brown. “Join us for another exciting journey!”

Writing of the July 17th premiere staging at the Hollywood Bowl, Mark Swed of The Los Angeles Times highlighted the contrast between on-stage and projected realities. “Helmeted Valkyries in flamboyant costumes began to walk onto the small stage. Men in green body suits
helped guide them into place. But they were essentially just singers on stage, doing their usual Wagnerian business in following Dudamel and acting some. On video, thanks to green-screen technology, they were transported to an animated digital wonderland. They hopped on
futuristic motorcycles and rode through a landscape that looked like it might have been designed by Buckminster Fuller, he of the geodesic domes. They raced through space with urns on the back of the cycles, the Valkyries’ main job being to bring dead warriors to Valhalla,
Wotan’s mountaintop castle, which he paid for with ill-begotten gold.”

This is the third time Sharon has used green screen technology for stage productions, following two cinematic adaptations: Andrew Norman’s Trip to the Moon, inspired by the 1902 silent film of the same title, and Olga Neuwirth’s adaptation of David Lynch’s Lost Highway. By blending the worlds of live performance with cinematic fantasy, The Valkyries embodies Sharon’s directing philosophy—one that uses opera as an opportunity to allow the fantastic to seep into ordinary reality, while still remaining convincingly rooted in the space in
which it is embedded.

GeDeane Graham, plays Schwertleite, and can be often heard under her sister as she is the contralto of the bunch.

“Breaking barriers in more ways than one is huge for me as an African American woman from Mississippi,” she said. “Growing up and even in college and even now, can you name a living Black Opera singer who is not emerging and is in mega star status? Although we love Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, and Shirley Verrett to name a few, who is that idle for my generation and the generation behind me? Black voices are meant to sing leading roles and headline shows not only in Europe but in the United States as well.”

As Mark Binelli of The New York Times Magazine relates, “There’s an element of directing that’s practical, Sharon told me — ‘basically, managing time. But then you need another level, where you are tapping into the realm of the impossible, what can barely be imagined. Sing in a moving car! Play violin while crossing a busy street!’ In Hopscotch, an actor on a motorcycle pulled alongside the limousines in moving traffic to deliver lines sent to the vehicles’ speakers via wireless mics — after which, Sharon said, audience members would ‘start to wonder what else might be part of the show. A helicopter flew by and they assumed that was us!’ Bringing the fictional into the everyday world highlights, for Sharon, the porousness of those boundaries, allowing witnesses to imagine transformative change in what might have seemed like an immutable reality.”

Sharon is currently the Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director of Detroit Opera; since assuming this role in 2020, his leadership and vision have been credited with transforming the company into the new center for progressive opera in the United States. Sharon began his tenure in October 2020 with Twilight: Gods, an innovative and site-specific Götterdämmerung adaptation which he both conceived and directed, staged in the Detroit Opera House Parking Center. The 2021–22 season, Sharon’s first as Artistic Director, featured collaborations with arts organizations from around the country—including co-productions with Boston Lyric Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, Opera Omaha, Seattle Opera, and Spoleto Festival USA—as well as two of his own productions: a recreation of Ragnar Kjartansson’s 12-hour exercise in radical forgiveness, Bliss, and a unique reverse-chronology production of La
bohème.

Final performances of The Valkyries will be Tuesday September 20 at 7:30 p.m. Run time for the production
is approximately 1 hour and 27 minutes with no intermission. Tickets for The Valkyries are
available online at DetroitOpera.org and start at $29. Orders for groups of 10 or more may be
placed by emailing groupsales@detroitopera.org. Subscriptions for the 2022-23 season can also
be purchased online or by calling 313-237-7464.