(Credit: Enrico Nawath/Bayreuth Festival)

Michigan Opera Theatre has announced that Yuval Sharon will join the company as the organization’s first-ever Gary L. Wasserman Artistic Director.

His five-year appointment comes on the eve of the company’s 50th anniversary and is made possible by a gift from board member Gary L. Wasserman.

Sharon is a recipient of both a MacArthur Fellowship and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant in theatre. He is noted as the first American to be invited to direct at Bayreuth, as well as the first director to fully stage an opera at the Wiener Musikverein.

To commemorate his appointment and the company’s anniversary, MOT has also announced the premiere of “Twilight: Gods,” a re-imagined staging for Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung” set to unfold across multiple levels of the Detroit Opera House Parking Center. Christine Goerke is currently set to perform the role of Brunnhilde.

“Even as the performing arts face unprecedented challenges in this country, this moment offers an equally unprecedented opportunity for change—for artists and institutions to re-imagine the future of opera,” says Gary L. Wasserman Artistic DirectorYuval Sharon. “Under Wayne Brown’s insightful leadership, with MOT Board President Ethan Davidson’s forward-thinking guidance, and with the advocacy of my friend Gary Wasserman, I see MOT seizing that chance to think in new and creative ways about opera in this city. It is an honor to join them and the rest of the MOT board and staff in charting that future and creating work that speaks specifically to the communities that make Detroit so vibrant.”