Atlanta Opera Is Growing, and Bucking Trends

Walking through a repurposed industrial space in Atlanta one recent afternoon, Tomer Zvulun gestured toward a cafe table in the middle of a wraparound stage covered in graffiti.

Zvulun, the general and artistic director of Atlanta Opera, described how the action in his contemporary-dress production of Puccini’s “La Bohème,” which was a few hours from opening, would swirl around the audience, providing an immersive experience for some of the 500 ticket buyers.

“If people need neck braces at the end,” he said, “we’re doing our job.”

Not only was Atlanta Opera presenting an unusually intimate, head-swiveling “Bohème,” it was also doing the show on alternating nights with — and on the same set as — “Rent,” the 1996 musical based on the Puccini classic. When the combination occurred to Zvulun and his team, they assumed that another company had already had the idea.

“But we Googled it,” he said, “and no one’s ever done it.”

Juxtaposing the pieces was a coup that embodied an organization trying to make opera vibrant and accessible — and succeeding in the bottom line. Over the past decade, Atlanta Opera has been on a very different trajectory from many American companies: It has been growing rather than shrinking.

Under Zvulun — an Israeli-born stage director who started at Atlanta Opera in 2013 when he was in his mid-30s, having never held an administrative position anywhere — its budget has tripled to roughly $15 million. (Only about 10 companies in the country are larger.) It braved the pandemic with a burst of programming.