Adoration, 2025
Opera by Mary Kouyoumdjian and Royce Vavrek after the film by Atom Egoyan.
Direction and Video Design.
Adoration is a chamber opera that explores inheritance, identity, and the stories people construct to understand themselves and one another. As director and video designer, I approached the work as a dialogue between live performance and projected image, using cinematic space to extend the emotional and psychological world of the opera rather than illustrate it. Video functions as a parallel stage where memory, fantasy, and lived experience continually overlap.
Premiered at the Prototype Festival in New York in 2024, the production was co-produced by Beth Morrison Projects and LA Opera for its West Coast premiere at REDCAT in Los Angeles in 2025.
Creative Team
Music: Mary Kouyoumdjian
Libretto: Royce Vavrek
Based on the film by Atom Egoyan
Direction and Video Design: Laine Rettmer
Music Director: Alan Pierson
Scenic Design: Afsoon Pajoufar
Costume Design: Rachel Dainer-Best
Lighting Design: Scott Bolman
Projection Design: Camilla Tassi
Sound Engineer: Daniel Neumann
Cinematography: April Goldberg
Creative Producer: Beth Morrison
Associate Producer: Sarah Herdrich
Prototype Festival Cast (2024)
Simon: Omar Najmi
Sabine: Miriam Khalil
Tom: David Adam Moore
Rachel: Naomi Louisa O'Connell
Morris: Marc Kudisch
Sami: Karim Sulayman
Silvana Quartet: Courtney Orlando, Nicole Sharlow, Gillian Gallagher, Maria Bella Jeffers Prototype Festival
LA Opera / REDCAT Cast (2025)
Simon: Omar Najmi
Sabine: Miriam Khalil
Tom: David Adam Moore
Rachel: Naomi Louisa O'Connell
Sami: Roy Hage
Morris: James Demler
Selected Venues
Prototype Festival, New York, NY, 2024
REDCAT / LA Opera, Los Angeles, CA, 2025
Recognition
Adoration was nominated for the 2026 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording.
Selected Press
2025
-Mark Swed, “How Exuberant, Ambitious Operas in L.A. Score Big Despite Small Casts and Modest Budgets”, Los Angeles Times
-Jim Farber, “At LA Opera, Adoration Is Timely and Emotionally Affecting”, San Francisco Classical Voice
2024
-Heidi Waleson, “Prototype Festival: Originality in Opera”, The Wall Street Journal
-Gabrielle Ferrari, “As in Years Past, New York's Prototype Festival Delivers Operatic Evolution”, Observer
-Max Keller, “Venite Adoremus”, Parterre
-Jennifer E. Pyron, “Prototype Festival 2024 Review: Adoration”, OperaWire