About the Aida I am lighting in July:
What ultimately attracts me to opera is what it can tell us about humanity and society; I think music is the best medium to explore how people think and feel—not how people used to think and feel. This requires a truthfulness of expression that is my chief concern as a director; my answers above may make you think I’m only interested in high-concept ideas, but in opera, concepts are carried by the humans telling the story and conveyed in their relationships. Working with singing actors to foster physically and emotionally true characterizations, connected to our world, is what I strive for. In big houses, this does not always translate across a sea of 4,000+ seats—gestures have to be exaggerated, vocal production has to be extreme, there is no such thing as a real pianissimo. But achieving this truthfulness in a smaller setting, with audience members much closer to the performers, where you can hear the performer whisper and follow their eyes—I think the impact can be overwhelming.
