Utah Opera had the coolest guest at its 40th-birthday party: Renée Fleming, arguably the best-known soprano in the world right now, thanks to her Grammy Award-winning recordings, crossover projects (including portraying a diva in a Broadway comedy) and status as the first opera singer to perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a Super Bowl. As if that weren’t enough, she’s been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and has lately been giving multimedia presentations on music and the brain, as she did earlier in the week in Salt Lake City.
Fleming — who, contrary to what you might have heard, is not retiring from the opera stage but retiring some roles — showed that her opulent voice and personal charm haven’t faded as she headlined a festive and fun evening of opera and musical-theater favorites with the Utah Opera Chorus and Utah Symphony in Abravanel Hall on Wednesday night.