As 2025 waned and Norman Maclean's, A River Runs Through It, neared the half-century mark since its publication, I got an email: 

My name is Matt Foss and I am part of the team creating the world premiere opera for the Maclean family for the 50th anniversary of the ... novella.

An opera. I hadn't really considered that approach to the book's material. I pinged John Maclean (Norman's son) and he confirmed it was a go, and that it would be something that was perhaps unexpected. So, Matt and I talked, and it became apparent that this was different. Opera Montana was commissioning it and they wanted, well, a Montana opera.

When Matt asked if I wanted to be the advisor for the fly-fishing aspects, my response was simple:

"Sign me up."

The Process

Since this project is current and on-going, I'm going to initially build this page like a "pseudo-blog," with updates as they happen. The premiere is in Bozeman, Montana on September 18. I'll be in town and likely working right until the curtains go up (and maybe after). Over the summer, I'll be storyboarding, casting, shooting video, and choreographing.

Film vs Stage

One of the first discussions Matt and I had was concerning how to approach the stage from a fly-fishing perspective. As a filmmaker as well as a professor of theater, Matt was already ahead of me with my first thought: "Take whatever we did in the film, and do the opposite." Well, sort of.

In film, you can have multiple takes from multiple angles, as well as secondary filming units and footage pickups that can happen weeks or months later. You can stop the action to replace a malfunctioning or broken prop. And once you're in the editing process you can cut pieces together in an ideal way, even inserting clips from other scenes. That's a lot to work with! The stage has no such luxuries.

On stage, you get one shot. It's all live. It either works or it doesn't. If the "doesn't" is minor, it may go unnoticed or can possibly be skirted around by a quick-thinking actor. If the "doesn't" is major, it can disrupt the flow of the show—in real-time. Now take that reality, add fly rods, fly lines, and fly fishing and apply it to an opera where characters are singing, moving up and down stage and interacting with each other. Fortunately, Matt is a smart dude and already had the underpinnings of a solution: projection.

The stage design of the opera integrates a backwall screen for projecting images and video as enhancement to the stage action. That opens up more room for artistic interpretation and, after talking it through, solves some major sticking points with the fly-fishing scenes. Turns out that multiple cameras, plenty of takes, and dedicated editing are indeed a part of the production. This is where a motion designer comes in.

Motion Art & Stage Reality

Shooting fly casting in slow motion and projecting it is one thing, but in order for it to have a stronger artistic impact, there needs to be more. So, I first shoot the fly casting—focusing on the flow of fly line, not on me—for each character and scene. I am using a high-frame-rate camera, which ultimately allows for standard or slow-motion video when played back. I edit that raw footage into manageable sequences and those are re-interpreted by the opera's motion artist, Kristin Ellert. It's that last bit where the real magic happens.

No longer is the fly line simply projected realism. Rather, it becomes a reference point for departure into a kinematic representation of character and mood. It's not just existing in a background role, but is instead a dynamic enhancement to an actor's performance. It also solves a difficult issue.

The challenge of characters fly casting/fishing on a relatively small stage while moving and singing in real-time is not something to approach casually. I have done plenty of fly casting on stages over the years, and I know the pitfalls that are possible. I even hooked an Allosaurus (long dead) on a backcast one time, but that's another story.

Take two actors, both casting/fishing, both moving upstage and downstage, both not professional fly casters. I don't want to be the guy responsible for handing them fly rods—set-up expressly for the stage or not—and letting them have at it on opening night. They don't want that either! Even if highly trained, that's significant stagecraft to get right in front of an audience. So projected motion art is stepping in and allowing us to reimagine the mechanics of operatic fly fishing.

Casting Without Lines

No cast member wants to be without their lines, but in the case of certain fly-fishing scenes, no lines will be present—fly lines, that is. The current direction is to have the cast (meaning the two brothers) perform certain scenes using only fly rods, with the projection taking over as the focus of the fly casting. Stage fly lines are set to appear at other times, but making a "shadow cast" on stage with line swirling (literally) around the actor feels like a questionable choreographic choice. Maybe we could make it happen with a Broadway budget!

Going line-less at certain times should allow the actors to focus and move more easily, even though they will still be holding stage fly rods and dealing with other props. In turn, this should reduce the time needed for scene prep and lower the practice bar required to make the fly-casting function live and in-person.

More to follow...

"The Blackfoot" painting by Clyde Aspevig for the opera, A River Runs Through It (via Opera Montana).