AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE

Part of Utah Opera’s mission is to not only celebrate traditional operatic works, but also to champion the American Operatic Tradition. We do this in many ways including presenting works on our stage by American composers and commissioning or co-commissioning new works.

• David Carlson’s Dreamkeepers (Commissioned by Utah Opera for Utah’s Centennial)
  January 1996
• Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men
  January 1999 and May 2012
• Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe
  May 2001
• Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music
  January 2002
• Carlisle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree
  May 2003
• Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath (Co-commissioned with Minnesota Opera)
  May 2007
• Blitzstein’s Regina
  January 2009
• Mark Adamo’s Little Women
  March 2011
• Daniel Catan’s Florencia en el Amazonas
  January 2013
• Kathleen Cahill’s Fatal Song
  November 2013
• Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress
  May 2015
• Mitch Leigh and Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha
  January 2017
• Stephanie Fleischmann and Jeremy Howard Beck’s The Long Walk
  March 2017
• Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer’s Moby-Dick
  January 2018
• Rachel Portman & Nicholas Wright’s The Little Prince
  January 2019
• Kevin Puts & Mark Campbell’s Silent Night
  January 2020
• Jonathan Dove & April De Angelis’ Flight
  January 2022
• Mason Bates & Mark Campbell’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs
  May 2023
• Sondheim and Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd
  October 2024