The Atlanta Opera Film Studio announces the premiere of a new documentary that chronicles the journey of five creative teams as they compete for the Antinori Grand Prize at The Atlanta Opera's 96-Hour Opera Project. The documentary premieres on Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) live on air at 4pm EDT on Sunday 4 August. 

Streaming Live Online at GPB HD Live 

The documentary will be available on the "Passport" streaming site for GPB and will also be available on The Atlanta Opera Film Studio streaming site at https://stream.atlantaopera.org/browse.

Designed as a talent incubator and competition for composers and librettists, The Atlanta Opera's 96-Hour Project invites creatives who self-identify as under-represented to apply and then pairs the selected talents to create mini-operas on a presented theme. Industry leaders act as mentors and judges as the creatives write new mini-operas for a $10,000 grand prize in the competition.

In partnership with Oakland Cemetery and the Atlanta History Center, the teams wrote their works based on under-told stories of the lives of historic black Atlantans who are interred at The Oakland Cemetery. The documentary explores the process of creating, collaborating, performing, and awarding the Antinori Grand Prize. 

"This documentary celebrates not only the ethnic diversity of the competing artists who created these stories but also the stories from Atlanta of those unsung heroes, those heroes who are woven into the history of this city that have also been under-represented in this town," says Tomer Zvulun, Carl W. Knobloch, Jr General & Artistic Director. "It's here we find our humanity."

Featuring

Tomer Zvulun, Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director, The Atlanta Opera Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, Jennings Hertz Artistic Director, The Alliance Theatre Mark Campbell, award-winning opera librettist Doug Hooker, CEO, Midtown Connector Park Priti Gandhi, Associate Director, Laffont Competition, The Metropolitan Opera Morris Robinson, Artistic Advisor, 96-Hour Opera Festival
Andrea Davis Pinkney, Librettist and Award-winning Author Richard Harker, Executive Director, Historic Oakland Foundation

Participating Creatives 

Edward Shilts, composer

Laura Barati, librettist

Omar Najmi, composer

Catherine Yu, librettist

Nathan Felix, composer

Anita Gonzalez, librettist

Dave Ragland, composer

Selda Sahin, librettist

Jorge Sosa, composer

Alejandra Martinez, librettist

Executive Producers: Tomer Zvulun and Felipe Barral

Director and Writer: Cara Consilvio 

The 96-Hour Opera Project and Festival is sponsored by the Antinori Foundation, UPS, and The Rich Foundation. This annual competition was founded in 2022 to address the lack of opportunity for upcoming creatives. Since then, three teams have been selected to receive the Antinori grand prize, which includes the 2-year development support of the mini-opera into a full one-act act chamber opera and a premiere performance at The Atlanta Opera. Each June, the annual Festival presents a premiere, the work in development, and the competition.