Egoyan to direct opera
by Julie Mollins, Reuters

Ottawa Citizen, Canada
August 26, 2006 Saturday
Final Edition

TORONTO – Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, renowned for award-winning
movies that explore the dark sides of human behaviour, is taking a
turn at helming a grand opera with similar brooding features.

Egoyan, 46, the Egyptian-born son of Armenian parents who migrated
to Canada, has examined incest, the horrors of war and the mysteries
of fate in such deeply psychological films as Exotica, The Sweet
Hereafter, Felicia’s Journey and Ararat. He will revisit some of
those themes for an upcoming Canadian Opera Company production of
Richard Wagner’s 19th-century opera Die Walkure.

The Wagner classic, the second of the four-part epic cycle Der Ring des
Nibelungen, is a complex tale in which incestuous love, the will of the
gods and fate combine to advance the overall themes of the Ring cycle.

During an interview at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing
Arts in Toronto, where a production of the entire Ring cycle will
open for a three-week run on Sept. 12, Egoyan described similarities
in his approach to making movies and opera.

"In my films I am very interested in subtext and what makes people
act the way they do," he said. "I try and bring that detail to the
way I direct the opera but also the way I stage it — the way I create
visual ideas which can reinforce the psychology of the piece."

This is not Egoyan’s first foray into directing opera. He began with
a 1996 Canadian Opera Company production of Salome. He directed an
earlier production of Die Walkure — the source of Wagner’s famous
Ride of the Valkyries — for the company in 2004.