Utah Opera presents solid production of Carmen

Utah Opera's Carmen

Utah Opera kicks off its 2016-2017 season with one of the most beloved and often-performed productions–Carmen. Bizet’s opera Carmen is a spectacular work, brimming with fiery passion, ceaseless drama and memorable music. Utah Opera’s 2016 production is a solid and straightforward telling that is pleasing enough, but falls a bit short of greatness. Carmen follows … Read more

Utah mixologists bring Utah Opera’s Carmen to the bar with Libretti & Libations

handles-soldier-cocktail

  Utah Opera’s third annual Libretti & Libations features talented mixologists who curate artisanal cocktails inspired by the season’s opera productions. From October 8-16, ten participating restaurants in Salt Lake and Park City will offer craft cocktails inspired by Utah Opera’s production of the devastating and sultry tale of Bizet’s “Carmen” as a way of … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: Some random acts of opera for the City Library urban atrium

Sometimes art’s most appreciated beauty arises randomly to the observer’s delight. The cathedral-like atrium in the City Library’s Urban Room, just one of the many high-traffic areas of the Utah Arts Festival, is a musician’s dream for acoustics, especially for opera singers. Perched in the middle of the overhang on the second floor, a singer … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: 40 Years New for festival city

Each year, the Utah Arts Festival is the most effective barometer of the strength, impact and potential of arts in the state. At 40, the festival is really a cosmopolitan miniature city in which more than 80,000 people will sample from the largest slate of programming, artists and performers ever presented at one time in … Read more

Backstage at The Utah Arts Festival 2016: City Library is hub of films, hands-on workshops, random performances

A tremendously diverse, logistically solid venue, the City Library will have perhaps its most extensive presence ever at this year’s Utah Arts Festival with the 40 in 117 exhibition featuring work from Utah artists representing the last 40 years from the state’s Alice collection established in 1899, numerous visual arts and musicians’ workshops, performances of … Read more

Utah Opera closes season with charming The Marriage of Figaro

The Marriage of Figaro

It doesn’t take much to have a good production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. The opera is so charming that as long as you have some good voices, you’re pretty much guaranteed a pleasant experience. Having a great production, however, takes an amazing amount of work. Not only do the voices need to be … Read more

The Marriage of Figaro opera facts

Utah Opera's The Marriage of Figaro

One of the most frequently performed comic operas, The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) tells the timeless tale of love and fidelity—recounted in a single “day of madness” in the palace of Count Almaviva, near Seville—while continuing the plot of The Barber of Seville. The four-act opera was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, … Read more

Lavish Spectacle, Strong Voices in Utah Opera’s Aida

Utah Opera's Aida. Photo credit: Heather L. King

It has been more than a decade since Utah Opera has staged the operatic blockbuster Aida by Giuseppi Verdi, and the energy at the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre on opening night was palpable. The production, which runs through March 20, is strong, ambitious, and exciting, but not without a few missteps. Aida is the … Read more

Inside the Utah Opera Production Studios

costumes from Utah Opera's The Merry Widow

Opera costumes are big business at the Utah Opera Production Studios. With 13 employees on staff in the costume department including a full-time cutter/draper, hat maker (milliner) and tailor/draper, each year the Utah Opera undertakes the daunting task of mounting a full season of professional productions direct from their own costume shop. “We don’t really … Read more