The opera meets the drive-in? That’s the case with the Fort Worth Opera which already has a reputation for trilling outside the box.
Fort Worth Opera is collaborating with Fort Worth’s Coyote Drive-In to bring opera right to drive-in patrons’ car speakers. The opera has teamed up with local grassroots video production company Neatovision to create a musical video that gives moviegoers a taste of opera and highlight the drive-in’s concession offerings.
Fort Worth Opera General Director Darren K. Woods stars as a moviegoer who takes four voracious opera divas (Violetta from La Traviata, Cleopatra from Julius Caesar, Mimì from La Bohème, and Carmen from the eponymous Bizet opera) to the drive-in. When the opera stars have eaten all his movie snacks, Woods calls the Coyote Drive-In help desk, where owner Brandt Wood, dressed in a coyote suit per the movie theater’s namesake, tries to help.
The spot, which features Woods’ operatic tenor, alongside Fort Worth residents’ puppetry talents, in a parody of the famous Pirates of Penzance “Major-General Song,” reminds audiences to stock up on their snacks at the Coyote Drive-In concession stand during intermission. If the puppets seem like professionals, it’s because they are; FWOpera Studio’s resident performers Clara Nieman and Kerriann Otaño also lend their voices to the clip’s four-part harmony vocals. The commercial feature will run between shows every night throughout the next six months and during the 2014 FWOpera Festival which begins April 19.