Al Wasl Opera

Spanning thousands of years of history, the story is inspired by the Saruq Al Hadid gold ring, one of the treasures from the Iron Age found in Dubai, which was the inspiration for the Expo 2020 logo.

Love is a major theme. But it’s the love between father and daughter, between man and tree, and between the couple from Act One who have been together forever. It’s not unrequited love, it’s not stormy love – it’s enduring love.

Al Wasl literally means ‘the link’ in Arabic. Al Wasl Opera focuses on the link between man, humanity and our environment. When looking back, we often realise that we’re not so distant from the people of the past. So, in that way, we’re connected to them, which is the link.

Leaders who disregard the environment, and others such as our Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who planted expansive forests in the desert. He was a visionary, and it was important to bring this element into the story and feature very prominently in the opera.

When Mohammed Fairouz and I started talking about the storyline, he already had the polymath in mind – the older man who is warning the tribe about their disregard for the trees and the environment.

This is what we [the UAE and its people] are about: we make bold moves. What we’ve achieved is beyond miraculous. This opera is yet another bold and brave move: it’s an amazing idea, one that was ripe for the happening.

We move on into the future in the final act, where we are in pure fantasyland about what the future may or may not look like. In my imagination, it’s very clean, abstract, pure and pared down.

The stage is dominated by an image of rings that intersect with one another. It’s a beautiful but abstract design because who knows what the future is really going to look like… The future isn’t real – yet.

That is a leap of imagination if you like, which is something that is very strongly embedded in the idea of this opera. Those are the kind of examples of how we treated the requirements of the story in an imaginative and symbolic way.

An opera is a distillation of essential ideas into non-realistic, emotional, musical language. Music is there to stimulate us to be aware of other realities, apart from the purely material ones we can see and touch.

Opera 360 is an immersive experience that takes audiences on a behind-the-scenes journey of Al Wasl Opera. The installation is located on the grounds of the Al Forsan Park at the Expo 2020 Dubai site throughout the duration of the event.

Footage projected on a 360-degree LED screen takes visitors backstage with the technical team, into the orchestra pit with the musicians, into the atelier where costumes and the set design are brought to life, and finally, onstage with the performers.

Visitors, who step inside Opera 360, are able to experience the magic of the opera and get an intimate look at the intricacies of bringing a seamless production to life.