America’s Most Interesting Opera Destination? The Midwest.

The production locations the “Ring” in the metaverse, with Valhalla as a digital generation whose again tale is recounted by Sigourney Weaver in a video clip introduction. Having a queen of sci-fi make this cameo is among the the show’s campy touches, like Carlos J. Soto’s winking costumes, which recommend “Tron” and its low-budget cousins of the 1970s and ’80s.

On the bifurcated stage, singers (accompanied by Andrew Davis top a lessened but undiminished orchestration by David Carp, to accommodate the theater’s more compact pit) perform in entrance of the green display screen — on green props, and supported by phase hands in environmentally friendly system suits, who, for instance, wave capes all through the “Ride of the Valkyries.” At the exact time, the film, which reflects changes in scale and placement on a electronic landscape, is revealed earlier mentioned. The singers, specially the soprano Christine Goerke, nonetheless earning her title as a reigning Brünnhilde, rise to the challenge of the near-ups with actorly supply she, experiencing an indefinite slumber atop a mountain as punishment, sobs with audibly shallow respiratory.

At fast glance, Sharon’s creation has the physical appearance of window dressing the action finally unfolds in a conventional way. But, as ever, the medium is the message.

“The Valkyries” could be noticed as a meditation on opera in the 21st century: the proliferation of online video in stagings, as perfectly as pandemic-era livestreams and the style of studio productions that grew out of them. What, now, is a are living effectiveness? Sharon provokes a stress of notion, with the eye and ear not sure of regardless of whether to focus on the singers or the monitor. What is dropped, and attained, in their interaction? He doesn’t offer an response so substantially as lay out a balance sheet that the audience is remaining to settle.

If Sharon does make a scenario, it’s for the toughness of an opera’s essence. No subject the format, “Walküre” is a rending portrait of like, loved ones and regret Sunday’s performance was not any different. And, as in “Fiddler,” the emotional core of “The Valkyries” was drawn out in a way that was unforced and truthful, however stylistically distinct. New York would be lucky to have possibly present.