Music makes the mundane magical! Join the Utah Opera Resident Artists for a musical celebration of everyday events, featuring the short operas Pepito and Happy Birthday.
All in a Day is a concert filled with musical numbers from opera and musical theatre as well as two short operas, one of them commissioned especially for this traveling concert. The concert scenes progress from morning through evening of a very good day: one that includes both a dog adoption and a birthday party!
The short opera about dog adoption Pepito was composed by Nicolas Lell Benavides to a libretto by Marella Martin Koch. A couple visits an animal shelter to adopt a dog, and the wife makes a particular connection with a lonely dog who misses his Spanish-speaking former owners. The second short opera, Happy Birthday, was commissioned by Utah Opera from Utah composer Andrew Maxfield and librettist Ruthie Prillaman. It addresses the controversy—and resolution!—of the question, “Who really owns the ‘Happy Birthday’ song?”
Runtime: Approx. 90 minutes, with intermission.
PROGRAM
GRIEG: “Morning Mood” from Peer Gynt
LEONCAVALLO: “Mattinata”
NJEZA: “Mzansi Africa”
HEISLER/GOLDRICH: “Taylor, the Latte Boy”
BERNSTEIN: “Suburbia” from Trouble in Tahiti
BENAVIDES: Pepito
DEBUSSY: “Clair de lune”
OFFENBACH: “Belle nuit” from Tales of Hoffman
WHITACRE: “Goodnight, Moon”
CATÁN: “Cuarteto de Cartas” from Florencia en el Amazonas
MAXFIELD/PRILLAMAN: Happy Birthday