What could AI do for an opera?
This was a question on James Darrah’s mind as he planned his first full season of Opera UCLA. Darrah, professor of voice and newly appointed director of Opera UCLA at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, has an established reputation for boldness. His extensive directing credits include productions with the LA Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Theater an der Wien and the San Francisco Symphony (to name but a few) and he was a producer of the Grammy Award-nominated film adaptation of Soldier Songs. So, he firmly intended to make a splash with Opera UCLA’s 2025-26 season.
“I want Opera UCLA to be the first through the wall,” said Darrah. “That means playing with new technologies in a creative way. I want to be the school that beta tests these ideas and then presents the results to the rest of the opera world.”
The idea of deploying AI in the realm of the arts is not without controversy, especially given that AI can pose a significant challenge to authentic human expression. Then again, technology has always been a part of music, from instrument-making to amplification to electronic manipulation. At first glance, though, Darrah’s programming choices for Opera UCLA’s 2025-26 season do not appear to lend themselves to technological themes. The first production, Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw (Showrun: November 20, 21 & 23), is a Victorian-era ghost story. The second—Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride—is an eighteenth-century opera drawn from Greek tragedy. Where exactly does AI Fit in?
“Too many writers and directors foreground technology and AI when they are trying to deal with them as themes,” said Darrah. “They will create an opera about AI or write an opera with AI. But I don’t think that’s the way forward. AI can expand our artistic horizons by giving us new options, new choices.”
The Turn of the Screw offers a lush palette for adaptation. Henry James’s 1898 Gothic novella was initially published in serialized form in Collier’s Weekly. It became a sensation by the mid-twentieth century. The famed New Yorker critic James Thurber called it “the greatest of all literary mysteries.” Were the ghosts real? Was the governess mad? Was a darker power at work? Critics and writers have still not settled the matter. Britten’s chamber opera score, completed in 1954, is renowned for its inventive use of orchestral colors to invoke feelings that range from playful to haunting. And while evocative, Britten’s music also conveys an underlying uncertainty—raising the dramatic stakes.
Darrah’s production raises those stakes further. Using live voice, amplification, and AI sound technology, the collaborative Opera UCLA team has found a way to separate a character’s voice from the stage production.
“We wanted to play with Henry James’s idea of historical voices intruding on the present, almost as a corrupting influence,” said Katya Lynch, master’s student at the school of music and assistant director for this production. “And we’ve been able to do this in inventive ways, through sound design and also through costuming and staging.”
Darrah put it this way: “I’m really leaning into the ghost story part of this opera.”
For Mike Beckerman, dean of The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, this kind of ambitious programming is in line with what he hopes to see. “If we are going to teach our students that it’s important to take artistic risks, then we have to lead by example. James Darrah embodies that spirit and will inspire students at UCLA to do the same.”
Opera UCLA is a fertile ground to push creative boundaries. The program draws from the school of music’s strong voice program and works with the set-building and costume department of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. Together, the two schools mount productions on a scale that few other higher educational institutions can match. The set design shop features elephant doors large enough to accommodate 22-foot-tall sets, while lighting and costume design are realized by students training to become professionals in the field.
Darrah should know something about collaborating with UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television—he’s an alumnus. While completing his MFA, he assisted with the very first partnership between the two schools initiated by Peter Kazaras, the longtime director of Opera UCLA who retired in 2024.
“I’m intent on expanding our collaboration,” said Darrah. “Opera singers need to understand how costume design works from first conception to fittings to the stage, and how that can impact artistic choices. Costume designers should know how to stage a pit plot [musician arrangements in the orchestra pit]. I want students to expand their artistic and professional horizons.”
Darrah has also brought in the Long Beach Opera, of which Darrah is the artistic director and chief creative officer. While most educational-professional relationships run in one direction—students leaving the educational institution to intern at professional companies—Opera UCLA’s pipeline runs both ways. Long Beach Opera’s production manager and CEO join in on production calls and partner with students working on the program.
If the production of The Turn of the Screw is maximalist in its inventive use of sets, costumes and technology, Opera UCLA’s second production this season, Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride, is minimalist. There will be no set designs—only creative use of lighting to cast shadows, shape the stage and add to the story’s emotional tone. The bare set contrasts with Gluck’s lush score and the opera’s high drama, allowing for an intimate experience.
“I’m always telling my students: you should be able to stand in an empty room and hold my attention as a good actor and a good singer,” said Darrah. “Opera is centuries old, and at its center is the power of the human voice. Even when we are using AI and other technology as tools to expand our storytelling, we have to remember that humans are still at the center of it all.”
Opera UCLA will perform Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw on November 20, 21 & 23. Click here for more information, and to RSVP.