This musical homage to Julia Child promises a showcase of vocal and culinary talent
The BYU School of Music has a delicious surprise in store for audiences this June: the performance of operas “A Dinner Engagement,” a lighthearted romantic comedy about two strangers who bond over their love of food, and “Bon Appétit,” a piece based on a real episode of Julia Child’s cooking show.
Directed by Robert Brandt, this delightful confection will run for four nights and feature scintillating vocals from the performers—as well as onstage cooking.
“I knew I wanted to do an opera in English that was written relatively recently,” Brandt said in an interview. “I wanted our students to have the experience of performing fun, truly accessible operas written in English. I wanted to give our audiences something different than a commonly performed standard work that was totally accessible and entertaining.”
“A Dinner Engagement” tells the tale of Lord and Lady Dunmow, who have fallen on hard financial times, and their daughter Susan, who struggles to find a suitable marriage partner. Their salvation seems to come in the form of the Grand Duchess of Monteblanco and her son Prince Phillippe, who are coming for dinner. Susan and Phillippe bond over their love of good food, but will that be enough to rescue the Dunmows from financial ruin? This opera is a savory one-act tale in 60 minutes that is sure to satisfy the whole family.
“Bon Appétit” takes real lines from Julia Child’s cooking show “The French Chef” and sets them to music while the opera singer prepares a real French chocolate cake onstage.
“The music brings a whole new level of color and joy in cooking than the original episode,” said Brandt about the opera. “It is also amazing to witness the feat of these remarkable students singing complicated music and making a complicated cake recipe, all at the same time.”
Running 25 minutes, “Bon Appétit” makes for a sweet companion opera to “A Dinner Engagement.”
“I hope audiences will be surprised and delighted with how entertaining operas in their own language and written close to their own time,” said Brandt. “I hope they will leave the Julia Child opera wanting to make that chocolate cake and I hope they will leave “A Dinner Engagement” feeling enchanted by this intimate and whimsical love story.”
This year’s spring opera will have livestreamed performances June 9-12 at 7:30 p.m. More information about how you can view the incredible performances can be accessed at arts.byu.edu and musiclivestream-dejong.byu.edu.