"What’s immersive opera? Opera Parallèle’s ‘Everest’ offers one worthy answer... Inside the playing space, each of whose four walls is a projection screen, the value of an all-white palette is clear. The backs of the other audience members you’re seated behind start to look like foothills to the peaks on the walls, which aren’t flat surfaces; some peaks are jagged cutouts in front of the walls, creating a dynamic surface on which Mark Simmons’ illustrations and David Murakami’s projection design can play. As wind squalls and mountaineering equipment clangs in the pre-show soundscape, with small globes of snowflakes projected onto audiences’ clothing, you might start to shiver involuntarily... “Everest” gives rare proximity, even immersion into, the human vocal apparatus. When characters describe what they see — “I looked up and saw three suns” — or confess their fears or reflect, it’s as if you’re inside their larynges. So intricately textured is the sound that you can almost picture individual vocal cords, how wet or dry they are." SF Chronicle
Directed by Brian Staufenbiel
Illustrations by Mark Simmons
Cinematography & Animation by David Murakami
Additional VFX by Sam Clevenger
Motion Capture by Umair Fareed
Produced by Opera Parallèle​​​ & The Dallas Opera
Highlight reel from OP's 2023 Production.
For best quality, view on an HDR10+ screen (OLED TV, M1 Macbook Pro, iPhone 10+, Pixel 6+, etc)
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