As the Atlanta Opera's general and artistic director, Tomer Zvulun has big ambitions for the organization, imagining a “new model of performing arts." Photo and video credit: Melissa Golden

When Tomer Zvulun (PLDA 21, 2021) joined the Atlanta Opera as the Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General and Artistic Director in 2013, he had big ambitions for the struggling organization. He envisioned a top-tier company with the capacity to stage the opera world’s most challenging production: Richard Wagner’s four-part Ring of the Nibelung cycle. “When a company does the ‘Ring’—just like when an athlete is training for the Olympics—the metabolism of the company changes,” Zvulun says.

The Ring can attract theatergoers from around the world—contributing significantly to the arts and culture sector in Georgia, which is estimated to bring in $32 billion to the state annually. After a decade of rebuilding, the Atlanta Opera staged the first opera in the cycle in 2023 and mounted the third this spring.

But Zvulun no longer sees the Ring cycle as the pinnacle for the company. He believes the Atlanta Opera has even more to contribute to the city, artistically and economically. “You have to go into the community and show them that you are a part of them,” he realized. Zvulun has made the company a rare success story in a struggling genre by forging some unusual partnerships—with hospitals, universities, veterans' organizations, even Home Depot—and staging operas in some unexpected places, such as a defunct railcar factory and a circus-style big top. He has also created a film studio to share the opera’s productions with wider audiences.

This year, the company will break ground on its first dedicated home in Atlanta in 20 years, in a historic building on the Beltline, a former railway corridor reimagined as a way to connect marginalized neighborhoods to the city core. “It’s going to be an incredible place for opera,” Zvulun says. But he has ever-bigger ambitions for the organization, imagining a “new model of performing arts,” he explains. “We will not just be an opera company, but a multimedia company that serves Atlanta and the world.”

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