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