MUSIC IN FILM
Expanding its Orbit The Atlanta Opera is traveling an unparalleled path into the art of film By Ca ro l Bada r acco Padge t t
T he pandemic could not stop op- era. And neither could the pub- lic’s inability to gather together in a traditional theatre. The celestial artform is a force, after all. It moves of its own accord and be- yond all physical bounds. Tomer Zvulun, general and artistic director for The Atlanta Opera, is perfectly at home in this sphere. “At 10 years old in Israel, I would watch movies by Fellini, Bergman, Hitchcock,” he notes. “And Spielberg, I loved the music in those movies.” It wasn’t far into his film watching journey that Zvulun discovered opera, much like a movie with a soundtrack. After studying art and music in school, Zvulun found his way into the creative business of opera. “I’d always wanted to find a way to bring together my two passions, film and opera,” he says of the road that led to his current role.
Felipe Barral filming a scene from Pagliacci (with Megan Marino as Beppe and Richard Trey Smagur as Canio). Photo by Ken Howard.
Puppeteers from Center for Puppetry Arts filming segments used in both the staged and filmed ver- sion of Threepenny Opera . Photo by Felipe Barral.
productions described as “visually stunning capture of a song with great meaning to the singer in a space that has great meaning to Atlanta.” While the venture markets itself primarily on social media and from its email list, Zvulun reports that viewers have come from all over the world—East Cobb to LA, New York, Germany, Israel, Russia, and the UK. “We’re reaching people who never knew about The Atlanta Opera before.” Perhaps even more importantly, he notes, “People are getting to experience opera that maybe never would have.” Next steps for The Atlanta Opera Spotlight Media include putting content out onto the film festival circuit. “There’s no category,” Zvulun says, “but maybe opera film will become part of the festivals’ next focus.” A very big season is also in the works, with highlights including comic opera The Pirates of Penzance , The Barber of Seville , a production on Steve Jobs, and a musical theatre called Cabaret based on the Broadway show and Liza Minnelli film. “We’re also working on a competition for young composers and writers,” Zvulun hints, “where they will write a new opera in four days.” The competition will, of course, be filmed. “There are so many opera fans worldwide,” he muses. “What we produce is for our own orbit and for the world outside.”
And each performance was professionally and artistically filmed by the in-house studio. This hybrid, live-to-digital formula worked. “We were the only opera company in the world to do 20 performances in the fall of 2020,” Zvulun states. “2020 was our bootstrapping year,” he says of the venture that evolved into The Atlanta Opera Spotlight Media. Backers in the form of patrons and foundations quickly stepped in and helped The Atlanta Opera fortify its professional film studio, turning it into a full in-house production company where each production travels en- tirely from ideation to post-production internally. The Atlanta Opera Spotlight Media now offers its own streaming media service available at stream.atlan- taopera.org, as well as is accessible through subscription. To date, the media venture has created, produced, and distributed four feature films, including The ThreePenny Opera and The ThreePenny Carmen , and series such as The Big Tent Concerts and Love Letters to Atlanta ; special “ We were the only opera company in the world to do 20 performances in the fall of 2020. ”
He came to The Atlanta Opera in early 2013 and jumped in wearing three hats. “I was general director on the business side [where he fortified his schooling with an executive program at Harvard], artistic director relating to art and music, and a stage director,” he notes. By 2017 he was working in the opera’s in-house film studio alongside Chilean-born arts filmmaker Felipe Barral, a 20-year CNN veteran producer-turned-auteur who was contracted by the Atlanta Opera to work on its promotional films. But then 2020 came and the pandemic imposed a drastic scene change. The live audiences that support the art form were holed up at home with the rest of the world. While many opera houses began dabbling in digital offerings in an attempt to engage audiences, The Atlanta Opera took a completely different tack: Putting on opera productions outdoors under a circus tent with the sides open. Its first productions blossomed on the baseball field at Oglethorpe University in fall 2019, where an elaborate blue and red-striped circus tent was pitched in the outfield to cover socially distanced, mask-wearing audiences as they sat for performances among the opera world’s elite. In the spring of 2020, the tent performances moved to the parking lot of the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. At each venue, The Atlanta Opera hosted two operas and three concerts for a total of four and six.
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