Opera has always been an art form built on tradition. But the companies shaping its future are the ones willing to reimagine what opera can be—and Opera Parallèle is helping lead that charge.

We recently went behind the scenes with the creative team to get a sneak peek of one of their newest productions, La Belle et la Bête, also known as Beauty and the Beast. But don’t worry—this is not another Disney remake…

Instead, they’re fusing Jean Cocteau’s iconic 1946 film with the hypnotic score of Philip Glass, merging cinema, technology, and live opera in real time to transform a familiar story into something entirely new. Click below to go behind the scenes and witness how Opera Parallèle is turning a legendary film into a living, breathing operatic experience.

For a company known as a leader in innovative, boundary-pushing opera experiences, this project is a natural extension of Opera Parallèle’s mission of honoring the art form while expanding what audiences expect from it.

This production is based on Jean Cocteau’s legendary 1946 film La Belle et la Bête, one of the most visually poetic works in cinematic history.

Rather than recreating the story as a traditional stage opera, the production places singers directly alongside the original film, allowing the two worlds to interact. Scenes unfold on screen while live performers replace the dialogue with music, creating an experience that sits somewhere between opera, cinema, and visual art.

“So you have the original film, and by the end of the production, we're making our own version of the film,” said Brian Staufenbiel, Director and Concept Designer. “We're having our actors act out exactly what the original actors did, and then we green-screen our actors, who are keyed out, and then placed inside the film.”

What makes this approach so compelling is that it honors the dreamlike quality of Cocteau’s film while introducing audiences to a new way of experiencing the story through Philip Glass’s composition.

Composed in 1994, Glass’s operatic interpretation of La Belle et la Bête replaces the spoken dialogue of the film with vocal lines performed live alongside the projected film.

The composer himself encouraged Opera Parallèle to take on this work, recognizing the company’s thoughtful approach to contemporary opera and their exploration of Glass’s Cocteau-inspired operas.

The score is unmistakably Glass: layered patterns, pulsing rhythms, and slowly evolving melodies that build emotional intensity across the story. Rather than simply accompanying the film, the music reshapes it. Moments that once existed as spoken dialogue become lyrical expressions, revealing new emotional layers within a familiar story.

Watching rehearsals, one thing becomes immediately clear: this production requires extraordinary coordination. Every musical phrase must align precisely with the film. Projection design, lighting, and movement work together to create moments where singers appear to step inside the cinematic world.

The result feels less like a traditional opera staging and more like a carefully choreographed dialogue between past and present.

“It’s layers on layers, on layers on layers,” said Hadleigh Adams, who is playing La Bête. “It’s very Opera Parallèle. Very innovative.”

Both Adams and Chea Kang have performed with Opera Parallèle in the past. When asked what she enjoys most about working with the company, Kang said, “I love a creative project like this. I love doing something out-of-the-box, and it’s a lot of fun to be a part of.”

What Opera Parallèle is doing with La Belle et la Bête speaks to something larger. While opera companies around the world work to preserve the great works of the past, Opera Parallèle is also asking an important question: how can the art form continue to grow?

Their productions frequently combine contemporary music, film, multimedia design, and unconventional staging to create experiences that feel relevant to today’s audiences while honoring opera’s rich history. It shows how opera can embrace new technologies, reinterpret familiar works, and invite audiences into stories in unexpected ways. La Belle et la Bête is just one example of that vision in action

For this production, Opera Parallèle partnered with projection designer and director of photography David Murakami, a frequent collaborator with the company.

“What I’ll say about all this new technology and people saying ‘opera is this’ or ‘isn’t that,’... It’s not that opera is stuck in the past. It’s that it has chosen to be this very specific thing. And that is beautiful, because there are stories that simply can’t be told any other way. It’s worth celebrating. And it’s also worth using that tradition as a diving board to explore what else is possible.”

Opera Parallèle first presented La Belle et la Bête in 2022 at SFJAZZ, where the venue allowed audiences to encounter Philip Glass’s remarkable score in a uniquely close setting. Now the production moves to Cal Performances, where the scale of a larger stage allows the creative team to expand the visual and technical elements of the piece.

Opera Parallèle’s La Belle et la Bête will be performed at Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley on March 13 and March 14, 2026 at 8:00pm.

To find out more about this production and Opera Parallèle’s upcoming performances, click HERE.