(Image Source: Mario Diaz-Moresco Official Website / Jennifer Zetlan Official Website)

When COVID-19 shutdown public gatherings, On Site Opera’s main purpose, which is to assemble productions in unique theatrical spaces, was suppressed.

But the company, renowned for making a New York City park or a Wax Museum into an opera theater, would not be deterred and rethought the concept of space.

And that reconceptualization is being brought to fruition with the organization’s latest creation “To My Distant Love,” the world’s first telephone-based opera experience.

Starting June 18-July 18, audiences will get a chance to hear Beethoven’s “An die ferne Geliebte” in one of the most intimate possible means – via telephone.

The concept is as follows. Ticket purchasers will be invited, one at a time, to engage in a phone call in which either soprano Jennifer Zetlan or baritone Mario Diaz-Moresco, joined by pianists David Shimoni or Spencer Myer, will perform the song cycle.

The concept encourages audiences to take the performance anywhere and choose the location where they want to experience the showcase.

“During this unprecedented pause, almost every aspect of our lives—even the way we are consuming art— has been through our computer or tablet screens,” stated On Site Opera’s General and Artistic Director Eric Einhorn in a press release. “This production will untether people from their computers and bring back the feeling of live theater, where anything can and will happen,” he continues. “We have brought audiences to more than 20 engaging sites across four states in these last seven seasons. We now invite our audiences to bring us to their favorite sites and be a part of revolutionizing the ways in which opera can be heard, experienced and evolved.”