16 | APRIL 27 • 2023
OUR COMMUNITY
C
ongregation Shaarey Zedek will
present “Tradition and Innovation
at Detroit Opera: A New
Generation of Jewish Leadership” Sunday,
April 30, from 3-4:30 p.m. at the Southfield
shul.
The program, sponsored by Barbara
and Michael Kratchman, features Detroit
Opera Artistic Director Yuval Sharon,
Music Director Roberto Kalb, Elizabeth
Polese (soprano), Ben Reisinger (baritone)
and Nathalie Doucet (head of music). The
concert is free and open to the community.
Patron tickets may be purchased for $100
per family and provides preferred seating
and access to an afterglow with the artists.
A STORIED HISTORY
The roots of Detroit Opera can be found in
the genesis of the Michigan Opera Theatre
(MOT) in 1971. Led by its visionary
founder, David DiChiera, Michigan Opera
Theatre helped pave the way toward the
rebirth of Detroit’s theater and entertain-
ment district. The Detroit Opera House,
in Detroit’s Grand Circus Park Historic
District, has been the company’s home
since 1996. DiChiera was the heart and
soul of the company until his retirement in
2017.
Fast forward to 2020, when the MOT
ushered in a new era for the institution,
one that would establish its reputation as
the destination for groundbreaking opera
in America.
In September 2020, Detroit Opera
announced that Yuval Sharon would
be joining the company as the Gary L.
Wasserman Artistic Director. Described
by the New York Times as “opera’s disrup-
tor in residence,” Sharon has amassed an
unconventional body of work that expands
the operatic form. He has directed and
produced operas in moving vehicles, train
stations, warehouses, parking lots and esca-
lator corridors, to name a few.
From 2016 to 2019, he was the inaugu-
ral artist-in-residence at the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, where he launched a major
revival of Meredith Monk’s opera, ATLAS,
becoming the first director to be entrusted
with her work. He is founder and artistic
director of the experimental opera compa-
ny The Industry in Los Angeles.
Among the visionary programs pro-
duced by Sharon during his tenure so far
in Detroit are Twilight: Gods, a unique
drive-in experience of Richard Wagner’s
Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) in
the Detroit Opera House’s parking struc-
ture, and a reverse-chronology production
of La bohème.
Two years after Yuval Sharon arrived
in Detroit, in November 2022, Detroit
Opera announced Roberto Kalb as its new
music director, the first to hold the posi-
tion since the 2017 retirement of the late
David DiChiera. Kalb made his Detroit
Opera debut in the 2017-18 season con-
ducting Ricky Ian Gordon’s 27; he returned
in early 2022 to lead Yuval Sharon’s
reverse-chronology La Bohème.
He previously served as a resident con-
ductor and head of music at the Opera
Theatre of St. Louis and has led produc-
tions across the U.S., Mexico and Brazil. In
addition to leading Detroit Opera perfor-
mances, Kalb builds and sustains the artis-
tic quality of the Detroit Opera Orchestra
and Detroit Opera Chorus.
Both Yuval Sharon and Roberto Kalb
are Jewish. Sharon grew up in Chicago, the
son of two Israeli parents, and attended the
University of California at Berkeley, where
he earned a B.A. in English and dramatic
arts. He went on to study for a year in
Berlin, where he became drawn to opera.
Roberto Kalb was born in Mexico to a
Jewish family and studied first at the San
Francisco Conservatory of Music where he
earned a B.A. degree in composition and
then went on to earn his M.A. in composi-
tion from the University of Michigan.
We asked Yuval Sharon and Roberto
Kalb a few questions:
A CONVERSATION WITH
THE ARTISTS
Why should people be drawn to opera?
Yuval: Opera is the intersection of all
of the arts: literature, music, architecture,
fashion — all of that finds a place in opera.
Because it’s an intersection, opera should
be for everybody. It should be for people
who already know to sing along with Verdi
and Mozart, and it should be for people
who are experiencing opera for the very
first time.
Roberto: Opera is the ultimate artistic
Free program features the new generation
of leadership at Detroit Opera.
Community
Concert at
Shaarey Zedek
SUSAN KOZIK KLEIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Roberto
Kalb