Entertaiment

Utah Festival Opera: A Study in Miracles
by Laurie Williams Sowby

Michael Ballam’s dream continues into its second decade with four productions onstage for over a month in a beautifully restored theater.

LOGAN, UT — Michael Ballam believes in miracles.

Ask the general director of Utah Festival Opera how it is that the Logan, Utah, organization is the sole survivor among U.S. opera companies started in the 1990s, and he gives the same answer he gave when The New York Times asked the same question: “We’ve come to expect miracles.”

Case in point: the elegantly restored, three-story Ellen Eccles Theatre where four musical productions run in repertory for more than a month each summer, drawing audiences from far outside its Cache Valley setting.

The building was closed and condemned in 1988, then nearly lost altogether when the building next door burned to the ground in 1991. Within a month of the announcement that the Capitol Theatre would be demolished, Ballam says, supporters had organized to save and restore the 1923 building to its original European-style opulence and add state-of-the-art technical equipment.

“This is one series of miracles after another,” says Ballam, referring not only to the building but the Utah Festival Opera. The fire “galvanized the community. People came forward, and we decided we were going to do it right.” Not only would the building be made safe as well as beautiful, but “we decided that we would not take the curtain up until we could compete with Santa Fe Opera.”

The fact that Utah Festival Opera was recognized in its infancy by Money magazine as standing among the top 20 warm-weather opera companies in the world — and one of only three west of the Mississippi –attests to the soundness of that decision.

The company’s debut was in 1993. UFOC’s 12th season is seeing ever-larger audiences — 80 percent from outside Cache Valley — and performances that run five weeks. The season also includes orchestral and vocal concerts, along with literary seminars, pre-performance discussions, backstage tours, and even a classic film series — in the same elegant theater where the operas are staged.

Ballam remains involved with the opera company’s everyday operation, although his duties as a professor of music at Utah State University as well as an in-demand performer have precluded his appearance in UFOC productions for the past three years. However, he’s back onstage this year, as Archibald Craven in an outstanding production of “The Secret Garden.”

Between performances, you might catch him washing his pink 1964 Thunderbird in the parking lot behind the Ellen Eccles Theatre. “I love old, beautiful things,” he concedes — not the least of which is the elegantly restored, 1,100-seat theater on Logan’s Main Street.

As of July 7, it’s been filled with audiences and the sound of music as the 2004 season presents four productions in repertoire Wednesdays-Saturdays, at 1 and 7:30 p.m., through Aug. 7. Onstage are Verdi’s “Rigoletto;” Rossini’s “Cinderella” (“La Cenerentola”); the modern Marsha Newman/Lucy Simon musical, “The Secret Garden;” and Lerner and Loewe’s venerable “Brigadoon.” The two English-language musicals as well as the two Italian operas feature English supertitles so nary a word is missed.

Tickets range from $17 to $55; see the complete schedule for evening and matinee performances and order tickets at www.ufoc.org. The site also lists overnight accommodations and area attractions surrounding this town 80 miles north of Salt Lake City.

The four selections are in keeping with Utah Festival Opera’s successful formula: a classic opera, a lighter operetta, and musicals that aren’t necessarily in the mainstream — “works we feel deserve a better shot,” Ballam explains.

More miracles got the opera company off the ground and have kept it out of the red. Board members include Hal Prince, producer of “Phantom of the Opera;” Fred Adams, director of the Utah Shakespearean Festival; businessman Larry H. Miller; and Utah Senators Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett, among others — “people who’ve given us good advice and kept us out of trouble,” according to Ballam. The all-volunteer board — including himself — ensures decisions that aren’t based on personal financial ties, but on the good of the company and the community.

Ballam notes that millions have been donated by anonymous sources, in addition to millions in donations that have been made public. More miracles have come in the form of a generous patron who gave the opera company an endowment fund and another who donated an apartment complex which houses UFOC’s nearly 200 professional cast and crew during the opera season.

“But money’s just an enabler,” Ballam emphasizes. He quotes Utah multi-millionaire James Sorenson’s philosophy that you have to have a dream, people to fulfill it, and the capital to make it happen. “Right now,” says Ballam, “we’ve got all three.”

While Ballam says he is still surprised at being able to perform professional opera in Logan, Utah, he maintains, “This is not about entertainment. The world is over-entertained. We’ve tried to energize the community” by rescuing the theater and putting high-quality productions and concerts on its stage year ’round.

Not only has the endeavor revived a dying part of downtown, he says, but 40 percent of the employees and nearly all of the volunteers are “local people who enjoy the blessing of this company.”

“What makes Utah Festival Opera unique,” Ballam concludes, “is that we came out of the chute running with a glorious opera house and a staff who believed in our dream and were willing to take a leap of faith.”

2004 Meridian Magazine.  All Rights Reserved.