David Murakami - Everest

"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... The 68-minute piece, which was written by composer Joby Talbot and librettist Gene Scheer, follows the true story of an ill-fated 1996 expedition to the Himalayan summit, zeroing in on three climbers: Rob Hall (Nathan Granner), Doug Hansen (Hadleigh Adams) and Beck Weathers (Kevin Burdette). In amplifying the singers, with sound coming from all around you, “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. Adams’ warm baritone, in particular, seems to reveal new dimensions in these environs; it takes on the tremulousness of a string instrument, then the resonance of brass." Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle

Directed by Brian Staufenbiel
Illustrations by Mark Simmons
Cinematography & Animation by David Murakami
VFX by Sam Clevenger
Motion Capture by Umair Fareed

Produced by The Dallas Opera & Opera Parallèle

SF Chronicle: Datebook

Highlight reel from OP's 2023 Production.
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