Kelly Marquez

Review of Utah Festival Opera

Don't bother. Your money is better spent on local ...

Don't bother. Your money is better spent on local community theater. At least they'll put effort into their performances.

Just saw Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was embarrassing. Easily the worst professional performance I have ever seen. We left at intermission because we couldn't take it anymore.

The sets and costumes were beautiful, but the performance was just completely awful. Quasimodo didn't bother singing half of his notes, preferring to talk the lyrics in a grotesque overdone accent that made them unintelligble. The whole cast acted like they wanted to be anywhere else except performing, and the whole thing was slow and disorganized. Every sound and lighting effect was late. Every orchestra cue was late. The cast was often singing at different speeds than the orchestra. Seriously, it was painful to watch, and no one onstage seemed to care.

Except for Frollo, every single performer in the Hunchback production, including the conductor, should be ashamed of their work. They were mocking a beautiful story with their apathy.

I saw Madame Butterfly too, and it was mediocre at best, but at least some of the performers seemed to be trying.

Utah Festival Opera used to be really good. Last season and the year before were great, as good as any show in a major city. This season, after seeing Hunchback and Madame Butterfly, I'm not even going to use my tickets for Music Man and Seussical. I tried calling to speak speak to someone in the box office about the show quality. I emphasized from the start that I didn't want a refund, but I still got cut off before I could even begin talking by an incredibly defensive lecture about how I didn't know what I was talking about, because she saw the show and thought it was great. Awful customer service.

I refuse to even give my tickets away because I won't submit anyone to these shameful amateurish performances.