Park City • In this ski town, the first full opera to be performed in over 20 years is getting ready for curtain call. The organizers behind it are hoping to make the classical art form cool, fun and accessible for everyone — especially for young people.
Lena Goldstein, Lisl Wangermann and Benjamin Beckman are all co-founders of Park City Opera, a nonprofit that started in March 2024. The three have multiple roles, but on paper, Goldstein is the executive director, Beckman the artistic director and Wangermann the development director.
“We are young people and we love opera, and we have a lot of friends who are also young people who also love opera,” Wangermann said. “From the outset, we knew that it was possible to cultivate and attract an audience that spans all generations.”
The three opera fanatics — Wangermann and Goldstein are sopranos and Beckman is a composer, conductor and pianist — are classically trained and met as students at Yale. Goldstein’s family moved to Park City a few years ago, and that’s when they all started visiting the mountain town.
“When we started Park City Opera,” Goldstein said, “our goal was to answer this question of, ‘What could opera look like if it belonged specifically to the Park City community?’”
That’s the question they’ve been trying to answer over the past 18 months and it’s led them to a classic story about a clever barber.
Reaching opera newbies and ‘super fans’ alike
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) From left, Park City Opera co-founders Lisl Wangermann, Benjamin Beckman and Lena Goldstein are pictured in Park City on Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025.
Park City Opera’s performances of “The Barber of Seville” will take place at two different locations: the Jim Santy Auditorium at the Park City Library and Premiere Park City, a speakeasy on Main Street.
Park City doesn’t have a traditional opera house, so the task of getting an opera started along the Wasatch Back proved to be a creative challenge for the team.
“That idea of bringing opera to the places that people already are,” Beckman said, “was something that we were really enthusiastic about.”
Wangermann, who is also the director of “The Barber of Seville,” said she enjoys coming up with creative solutions to adapt an opera to a space with limitations.
At a rehearsal 10 days before the show’s Aug. 24 premiere, she and the cast worked through how to make moments more comedic, working with the unique set design and props. She wants them to lean into the “cringe energy” of one particular moment.
The opera team’s focus on what the Park City audience wants — an approachable program — is key to their season planning.
“Overall,” Wangermann said, “we have found that there is something for everyone to love about classical voice and opera; it is just about fostering the right environment to enjoy it in.”
At all of the group’s free concerts it has hosted over the past year, attendees were asked to fill out surveys asking what they enjoyed about the performance and what they’d like to see from Park City Opera in the future.
There were also demographic questions and questions about familiarity with the opera. One question inquired about how familiar customers were with the opera on a scale of 1-5. Beckman said the average response was 2.7.
“There are just as many people at our concerts who are experiencing opera with no familiarity,” Goldstein said, “as there are people who are opera super fans.”
At last summer’s events, around 50-60 people attended each show. Now, the group has close to 100-200, according to Wangermann. The nonprofit has hosted around 20 events at 15 different venues.
A new take on a classic
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Co-founder and artistic director Benjamin Beckman works with performers as Park City Opera prepares for its first full-scale show, Thursday, Aug. 14, 2025.
In Park City Opera’s adaptation of “The Barber of Seville,” there are 15 Utah-based musicians in the orchestra, as well as a handful of Utah-based singers in the cast.
The opera was first performed in 1816 and composed by Gioachino Rossini. The comic story follows a journey of romance between two characters, Count Almaviva and Rosina.
“We picked ‘The Barber of Seville’ because it’s a great opera, both for people who love, know and follow opera,” Wangermann explained, “[and] it’s also a really great entry point for people who have never seen an opera before.”
It’s a production that is as nimble as it is recognizable, Beckman added.
“There are so many different ways to do it, to read every single moment,” he said. “Even someone who has been to 30 performances of ‘The Barber of Seville’ in their life will find something totally different with our production.”
There’s one change the team is particularly proud of.
“The Barber of Seville” has an aria at the end — a solo vocal piece that informs audiences of a character’s emotions. The aria is typically sung by Count Almaviva right before the finale of the opera, but it’s often cut because of its length.
“One of the things that we feel is really important to us in our production is centering Rosina’s agency, skill and wit throughout,” Beckman said. ” … She’s not just being tossed around by these men, but actually she is the leading force driving a lot of the action through the opera.”
In this production, Rosina will sing the aria.
“It centers Rosina right before the end of the opera,” he said. “It makes her like the leading voice, really, that the audience hears right before they walk out of the theater.”
As Park City Opera gears up to put on the production, it is also planning another opera alongside other fall events. The group’s dream is to turn Park City into a destination for opera and classical music.
“That seems lofty, but what are we without our goals and dreams?” Wangermann said. “Last summer, we said we’re going to do a fully staged opera … and we [are].”
“The Barber of Seville” will have three performances. The first is Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Jim Santy Auditorium. The next two will be on Aug. 29 and Aug. 30 at Premiere Park City and will only be available to those 21 or older. Tickets for the Santy performance cost $55-$75 and tickets for the Premiere cost $75-$125.
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