The Atlanta Opera will open its 2024-25 season (the company’s 45th) with two installments in its multi-season “Bohème Project”: a contemporary and immersive opera experience that alternates a new version of Giacomo Puccini’s tragedy La bohème set during the 2020s COVID-19 pandemicwith its modern-day analogue, Jonathan Larson’s Rent, set in the during the darkest days of the AIDS epidemic.
Both will be performed at Atlanta’s converted industrial complex Pullman Yards (Sept. 18-Oct. 16). They follow the current (January 2024) production of the opera in its traditional 19th century setting when the leading character is dying of tuberculosis.
They will be part of a full season of six opera productions inspired by the archetypal “hero’s journey” found in myths and fairytales from around the world.
The two “Bohème Project” operas will be followed by General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun’s new production of Wagner’s Siegfried (April 26-May 4), the third opera in The Atlanta Opera’s Ring Cycle. As Siegfried, the acclaimed Greer Grimsley is joined by the “impassioned” (Parterre Box 2022) heldentenor Stefan Vinke, together with luminaries of the Wagner repertory Barry Banks as Mime, Lise Lindstrom, who “brings instant star power to the role of Brunnhilde” (Classical CD Reviews) and the “burning, taut contralto” (New York Classical Review) of Lindsay Ammann in the role of Erda
In its first complete season as one of the 10 top-tier opera companies in the U.S., The Atlanta Opera’s mainstage series at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre includes Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Nov 2-10) featuring Rainelle Krause as Queen of the Night in her company debut and Santiago Ballerini as the hero Tamino. Michael Mayes will play the anti-hero of Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth (March 1-9) joined by Sara Gartland as Lady Macbeth. The regular season will conclude with Handel’s Semele featuring Lauren Snouffer as the hero who, like Macbeth, allows her ambition to mislead her into disaster (June 7-15).
All mainstage series productions will be livestreamed and filmed for release by The Atlanta Opera Film Studio.
