About High Desert Opera |
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Five New Year's Eve Galas, and three fully staged operas have been produced since its inception. These performances have been held at GJHS Auditorium and most recently at the Avalon Theatre. The opera company consists of over fifty vocal performers (soloists and chorus members). The largest production HDO has performed to date was in conjunction with the Grand Junction Symphony, and it was the operetta Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss. It was performed for an audience of 2500. The opera company and GJS will do more joint projects in the future.
Werner was joined on stage by Tarasina Compagni, Jeremy Franklin, Brandon Motz, our first guest performer- Jeff Ayres, and the High Desert Opera Chorus.
High Desert Opera is a Colorado non-profit corporation. |
High
Desert Opera is working to bring Grand Opera to Grand Junction. The
opera company was started in 2003 by Jim and Marnie Werner.
The Summer Opera Festival event was held in August 2006. The fully staged opera of Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci was performed on the Avalon Theatre stage with James Werner in the lead role of Canio. 
Our 2007 New Year's Eve Gala followed our format of opera exerpts in the first
half and Broadway musical exerpts in the second half. The opera selections
were taken from Bizet's Carmen, Offenbach's Tales
of Hoffmann, and Verdi's Otello featuring
lead singers and chorus of our company joined by guest artists Terri
Metcalf-Peterson and Jeff Ayres. The Broadway selections
were taken from Chicago, Finian's Rainbow,
& Hairspray. Other gala features were an
instrumental interlude by The Elias Duo playing tango music,
and a special 4 aria salute to Puccini to celebrate the 150th
anniversary of his birth. Be sure to set aside next New Year's Eve to join
us for another gala celebration of opera and show tunes here in Grand Junction.