‘Our Planet Live in Concert’ brings the world to the Vilar stage

Travel the world without even leaving your seat at the “Our Planet Live In Concert” performance at Beaver Creek’s Vilar Performing Arts Center on Thursday. Indulge your senses in this multi-media event that allows you to experience nature, travel, planet Earth and its amazing creatures that roam from the sea to the slopes and from the deserts to the jungles.

“Our Planet” is a multi-part Netflix documentary series that debuted in 2019 and has been re-edited to fit this special, traveling performance. Developed by the series producers World Wildlife Foundation, Silverback Films and Oscar-winning composer Steven Price the live experience takes things to a whole new level. Price will lead an 18-person orchestra on the Vilar Performing Arts Center’s stage with breathtaking visuals backing up the music.

“When we would record the show, we would record every month at the Abby Road studios in London,” Price said. “After working on a few of these, we had eight films in the series, I remember someone saying, ‘it would be good to hear this live one day, wouldn’t it?’ and everyone thought, ‘oh, absolutely it would’ and we never really dreamt it would happen and we’ve worked on it ever since basically, so we’re completely excited that it’s coming to America.”

Even if you have seen all the episodes of “Our Planet” you’ll see new footage in this stage production. The team went back to the original footage and made this a stand-alone, two-hour experience where viewers will see amazing animals and scenery all set to a musical score that was designed specifically for the footage.

“There’s an incredible amount of footage and then brilliant people edit it together to make these perfect little stories and then I sit there and watch them. They all have their challenges, and they all kind of sound different — the arctic was full of these big expansive melodies where something like the jungle has tiny little creatures doing tiny little movements and you follow them with the music and tell their stories. So, they all have their challenges, and you love them in different ways. I find jungles always challenging because there were so many notes, but it’s always good fun.”

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You’ll also see the not-so-pretty parts of the planet.

“You will see how the planet is in a bit of trouble in places as well. You go from the joy of seeing the planet, the sadness of what we’re doing to the planet but then hopefully we send you away with a lot of optimism about some of the things that can be done to make things better and the clever people who are working on it,” Price said. “I learned a lot through the whole process, the big thing for me is everything is connected, and this show really concentrates on that. Everything counts, we are all in this together.”

The visuals will be brought to life even more by David Attenborough and William Shatner co-narrating the program.

“It’s one thing to watch your Netflix on your phone or your TV but you’re going to be in the middle of this,” Price said. “The lights are all surrounding you, you’re going to feel like you are in the jungle, you’re going to feel like you are in the arctic and you’re going to feel some of these amazing stories.”

Tickets for reserved seating start at $45 and there is a special child’s ticket and student ticket price at $30 each and this is also part of the Vilar Performing Arts Center’s 4-Pack where you can buy four tickets for $168 and save some cash. For more information, go to VilarPAC.org.