Ridi...!

Laugh! Even though your heart is broken! (Even though I'm probably the only one who would read that and have "Vesti la Giubba" run through my head, it makes me feel good to write it anyway. :)) My heart IS broken! The Utah Festival Opera season is ending in another couple of weeks—our favorite event of the year!—and we will have missed it. This is really, really sad for a number of reasons:

1) They're performing Manon Lescaut—one of the few Puccini operas I haven't seen. 

2) Their Puccini is incredible. (Hard to believe, I know. But it's true.)

3) In 14 years, I've only missed one season.

4) This is their best season ever. (A record FIVE shows, and all of them are great: Aida, Manon Lescaut, 1776, Gypsy, and Into the Woods.)

5) Reasons 1-4 again. Times a billion. 

And even though I put a bunch of I's up there because they technically only applied to me, Matt loves theatre as much as I do and is crying, too. Some of our favorite experiences together have been in UFOC shows—we often come away from a performance feeling totally inspired. Sometimes we even sit through an intermission totally speechless other than: "Wow." "Yeah.... WOW." "That was...wow." "Yeah...." Paralysis by awe. Hehe. (Did I mention this would have been our favorite season ever?)

And in case I still haven't been able to adequately express how much we stinking LOVE this opera festival, consider this: that when we drove away from Springville, UT five years ago, we high-fived each other all the way out of the state and made a solemn vow never to return. Hehe. And yet...PTSD in the Salt Lake airport notwithstanding (I'm not entirely joking...), we count our year by the Utah Festival Opera season. I'm not sure I can describe how profound that is. Hehe. :) I'm still wracking my brain for a way to make this work, but my gut tells me we're really missing out. Tears, tears. And more tears! Do you think Oprah or someone would appreciate our "sad" story and make this work for us...? ;)