In 1898, Park City had not one but two opera houses. Tragically, both burned in the city’s Great Fire that same year. More than a century later, a group of young opera performers is bringing local opera back. Sopranos Lena Goldstein and Lisl Wangermann, and conductor, composer, and pianist Benjamin Beckman first collaborated as Yale University students in 2019. They established Park City Opera (PCO) in 2024. 

They chose Park City because of Goldstein’s local family and her experience with the city’s cultural scene through a Park City Arts Council internship. “Park City really felt like it was the perfect place,” says Goldstein, “given a huge appetite for classical music but a lack of availability of local performing.”

PCO doesn’t have a dedicated opera house; instead, performances are held in venues across Park City. “We feel strongly about bringing opera to the spaces that people are already in,” Beckman explains. “It’s not that you’re coming to this venue, it’s that we’re coming to you in City Park or coming to you at the library.” They have performed everywhere from conventional theaters to Main Street galleries, temples, churches, and the Park City Gardens greenhouse, with the goal, Beckman says, of “giving these spaces, that are part of people’s everyday life, music.”

What makes PCO special, Wangermann says, is “the way that we incorporate place and community in our work. It’s really specific to what people in Park City want to hear. We’re in conversation with the audience and with venues and with businesses.” They also feature mostly local performers and are enthusiastic about providing more opportunities for artists.

PCO’s 2026 season features Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land (July 18 & 19), a story of a 1930s American farming family, and Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (Aug 21 & 23), an operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic play. They also stage free, outdoor performances throughout the summer at Park City Library and the City Park Bandstand. The City Park series features Opera Around the World in partnership with Mountain Town Music, showcasing opera and art songs from Europe to Peru. These performances intend to make opera a casual experience: “Bring a picnic blanket and your dog and your kids,” Goldstein says.
Making opera accessible to all is central to PCO’s founders. “We don’t underestimate our audience,” Beckman says, noting that they aren’t afraid to program interesting music that’s off the beaten path alongside the greatest hits of Italian opera. But, he adds, “with everything that we perform, we also provide contextualization of that work” through talks about each piece, its themes, and the composer.

Listening to the genre’s range helps people better appreciate it, Wangermann says. “It’s really empowering to walk away from a concert knowing your own taste a little better and be able to have a conversation about it or even recognize a song when they play it in the background on The Traitors.”

“We’re not trying to say you’ll love every opera,” Wangermann says, “but everyone can find a piece of it that they will like and appreciate, and we hope that they give us the opportunity to show that to them.”