USU Opera Theatre Performs Opera and Musical Scenes for All

Utah State University Opera Theatre students will be performing opera and musical theatre scenes March 24 and 25 at 7:30 p.m. in FA 214 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on the USU campus. The scenes include selections from A Little Night Music, Carmen, The Consul and Hairspray. 

“This production is intended to give our underclassmen opportunities to learn basic principles of acting, role preparation, directing and performing in practical context,” Dallas Heaton, director of the opera theatre program in the Caine College of the Arts, said. “Instead of the intense demands required of a full-length show, we’ve selected some of our cast and production team’s favorite scenes from well-known opera, operetta and musical theater repertoire.”

USU Opera Theatre offers students the opportunity to participate in a fully-staged opera or musical every year under the musical direction of Heaton. Focusing on repertoire in English, undergraduates are able to concentrate on the fundamentals of stagecraft—the art of telling a story through sight and song. Professional guest stage directors are brought in from across the country and around the world to give students an authentic experience and further preparation for a career as a performer or teacher of opera.

“Our students have risen to the challenge of preparing a great program on a very condensed timetable due to our mainstage production of La finta giardiniera last month,” Heaton said. “This production is our most student-led show of the year, with students involved at all levels of the production process—from choosing rep to scene direction and stage management to choreography. We’d love to invite all to an enjoyable, free evening of great musical theater and to see what USU music students are capable of!”

The performance is free and open to the public. For more information and tickets, contact the CCA Box Office in room L101 of the Chase Fine Arts Center on USU’s campus, call 435-797-8022 or go online to cca.usu.edu.

Writer and contact: Whitney Schulte, whitney.schulte@usu.edu, 435-797-9203