Is the Future of American Opera Unfolding in Detroit?

[Lowell]

So reads the headline of this New York Times Article in today's edition with a nice Gray Lady Detroitgasm featuring the Detroit Opera artistic director Yuval Sharon. *Detroit Opera was formerly known as the Michigan Opera Theater but was recently renamed Detroit Opera at Sharon's insistence. Nice move IMO.

Cited in particular is an edgy performance held inside the crumbling Michigan Theater / garage.

A restaging of a marathon piece by the Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson, “Bliss” requires its performers to replay the final three minutes of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” without pause for 12 hours.

Sharon’s production took place in what was once the Michigan Building Theater, a former Detroit movie palace that closed in 1976; infamously, when architects determined that demolishing the theater would make an adjoining office building structurally unsound, the interior was gutted and transformed into a multilevel garage.

The writer [Mark Binelli, native Detroiter, and author of excellent Detroit City The Place to Be] was clearly enthralled with the setting and the 12 hours of re-performing of the last three minutes of The Marriage of Figaro which he describes as a "purgatorial repetition ... a perfect metaphor for our daily lives during the pandemic."



The article makes clear the huge stature Sharon has in the world of opera, and mildly ponders over why he took a post in Detroit, and supplies this answer.

Mark Williams, the chief executive of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, told me that when he heard about Sharon’s move to Detroit, he was not surprised....Sharon’s ambitions, Williams said, were bigger than guest directing; he was “the sort of person who would want to come into a space where he could really effect change, rather than going into a more established space and becoming more of a caretaker.

As a deep partisan of the city, I say with all fondness: The future of American opera unfolding in Detroit was not a plot twist I saw coming. And yet, Sharon countered, Detroit might actually be “the perfect place to really push for what the future of opera can be.” He is not interested in a universalist, one-size-fits-all approach, where “La Bohème” ends up the same in Detroit as it does everywhere else: “No, it’s got to be totally of Detroit in the end. That, to me, is the path forward.” Couldn’t — shouldn’t, Sharon insisted — opera in Detroit look and feel and sound like nothing else in the country?

I like that attitude. Thoughts?

[Zacha341]

Sounds awesome. Thanks for sharing these details Lowell.

[Gistok]

Thanks for posting Lowell. I missed the performance, only finding out about it after the fact. But the late great former MOT Director David DiChiera was probably smiling down on this all.

As you know, having had your DYES HQ in the Michigan Office Building for many years, it was an awesome reuse of this unique space... largest interior ruin in America. Our dear late friend Tony Pieroni would be scratching his head wondering about all the fuss over his former building. I keep his son [Mark, not Matt] informed about all the goings on there, and he shares it with the family, including Tony's brother.

I am glad that MOT was renamed Detroit Opera... because too often the Opera House has been misnamed "Michigan Opera Theatre"... when that was just the organizations name.

As for Detroit Opera's new musical director Yuval Sharon... I do hope he stays beyond his 5 years contract. Back when the Detroit Opera House was opened in 1996 there was a lot of buzz in the opera world about the new home... "the most Italian of all Opera Houses"... when all the major opera stars wanted to perform here in Detroit to check out the venues amazing acoustics. So glad that some of the excitement about Opera Detroit has come back!

[1953]

I think something is lost in artistic merit when you do a 4 hour opera in 60 minutes in a parking garage, but that's just me.

Also, it would be great if someone wrote about Detroit's excellence for the NYTimes who wasn't a local booster - might give it more credibility.

1953

[Jimaz]

I think something is lost in artistic merit when you do a 4 hour opera in 60 minutes in a parking garage, but that's just me....

What effect did gutting the interior have on the acoustics of the space? None? Was it improved? Just curious.

[Gistok]

What effect did gutting the interior have on the acoustics of the space? None? Was it improved? Just curious.

I don't think that it helped... the flat and open sidewalls may have made it worse. Usually all the nooks and crannies in a theatre help acoustics because the sound gets bounced around.

Although the Michigan was designed by famed movie palace architects Rapp & Rapp, Detroit's own famous movie palace architect C. Howard Crane [designer of Orchestra Hall, Fox, Capitol, United Artists] said if an interior was pleasing to the eye, it would be pleasing to the ear as well. In fact Crane had his architectural offices in the Michigan Building for a few years, after he was kicked out of the Huron Building when it came down to build the Guardian Building. Crane obviously checked out the Michigan Theatre, since he designed his best theatres [Fox et al] while residing in the office portion of the theatre.

1953... have you ever been inside the former Michigan Theatre in its' current state? It's more of a post apocalyptic ornate theatre, than just a parking structure. Folks from around the world come to visit the remains [about 50% of the interior still survives]. There was even a Canadian architecture professor who brought his entire class to inspect the interior.

The interior has been the scene of endless commercials, as well as the movie 8 Mile. And for the opera performance they played only the last few minutes ending of the Marriage of Figaro, over and over, for 12 hours. Although it does seem odd, it did draw a lot of artistic attention beyond the metro area.

It may not have been everyone's cup of tea, but Detroit Opera did get good reviews during the Pandemic, when regular opera performance worldwide were on hiatus.

Also, does it really matter who wrote a piece for the New York Times? It got the attention of opera buffs everywhere.

It is interesting that when architectural folks came to Detroit, they came to see the Michigan, rather than the Fox or Opera House. It is unique in the world in its' current state. Also, the top floor of the parking structure is no longer open to parking cars. It is used as event space.

2 images I took of the interior... looking towards the faded opulence of the Grand Lobby, and the very unique mirrored interior of the Great False Window above the entrance of the former theatre... it is such a dazzling space, that there is nothing else to compare it to!

[Richard]

I kinda think it is based on what they are doing as in if they are doing just the music or including the theater part.

The just the actual opera music part seems to be more popular,the Minack Theater in the UK is literally cut out of the cliffs and performances are sold out.

Andrea Bocelli has a massive following with sell out crowds with a majority being in open air venues,as in literally closing of a large street and having a performance in Italy,Netherlands etc.

I think they are changing how opera is performed in order to draw more crowds and appeal to a broader audience,verses a venue where only the stuffy elite attend,settings like the derelict Michigan theater are more common place and more causal that attract a wider audience then the dress up to the nines for an evening at the opera.

[Ray1936]

What opera is all about.

https://youtu.be/pdPM6j1Q4sg?t=22

[Henry Whalley]

I think something is lost in artistic merit when you do a 4 hour opera in 60 minutes in a parking garage, but that's just me.
1953

Just to be clear, "“Bliss” requires its performers to replay the final three minutes of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” without pause for 12 hours." The author "came early to “Bliss,” then returned again closer to the finish". Smart! For a timely reviewer, the smart strategy is to hear those final three minutes repeated exactly twice, once at the beginning, and once at the end.

Six minutes of bliss.

[Gistok]

Six minutes of bliss.

I'm not sure if the ending to The Marriage of Figaro would have been my choice to have sat thru several times. I would much have preferred Nessun Dorma from the end of Puccini's TURANDOT... one of the most famous endings to any opera. Detroit PBS sponsored a Tribute to the 3 Tenors with Italy's fantastic Il Volo performing it conducted by Placido Domingo... that I could have heard repeatedly maybe 5 times...

[Lowell]

I'm not sure if the ending to The Marriage of Figaro would have been my choice to have sat thru several times. I would much have preferred Nessun Dorma from the end of Puccini's TURANDOT.

Not only that^ but for a twelve hour performance Nessus Dorma fittingly translates as ​"None shall sleep" .

[1953]

Gistok, I am very familiar with the Michigan Theater in its current state. As a lover of Detroit's history and traditional architecture, I find it grotesque, though I recognize that opinion is not universally shared.