Both song writers in the BYU—Idaho music scene, both performing at open mic night, and both experiencing breakups and broken hearts, Garrett Sherwood and Ryan Hayes found a common purpose that resulted in a musical creation.
Deep Love Opera was born in 2010 and since then has had three annual productions all held during the Halloween season. It is a combination of Hayes’ old-timey folk genre and Sherwood’s unique style of country blues.
“We melded different styles for the show,” Sherwood said. “You’re going to hear really soft folk songs to really rockin’ rock-n-roll songs and everything in between.”
The show is essentially a rock opera made up of four main characters whose story is told through four main singers and 50 musicians on stage. Each character has a distinctive sound that contributes to the telling of the love story.
“There is a story,” Sherwood said. “Every song is telling a part of the story. You get part of it through the lyrics, part of it through the staging … there’s no dialogue; everything is told through song.”
While one of the characters, Constance, mourns the death of her lover, Friedrich, who has the swag of rock and roll comes strolling in and decides he has an eye for Constance. He steals her heart, and all is well until past loves complicate their relationship.
“The story just sort of came as we were writing it,” Sherwood said. “Ryan and I had both had our heart broken just as everybody else … and so there’s a little bit of that in there. What’s interesting is that audience members have all connected to different characters.”
A contest was held on the Deep Love Facebook page for people to vote on which character was their favorite, and it came out almost completely even. It seems as though different people relate to different sides of the tragedy, but everybody can relate somehow.
“Most people vary in what they take away from the show,” Hayes said. “Typically they will end up siding with one of the characters, which makes for an interesting dynamic … mostly they love THEIR character.”
Some of the characters are played by big names like Amy Whitcomb, who competed on “The Voice,” and Midas Whale’s Ryan Hayes, who also co-authored the show.
“This show is absolute magic,” Whitcomb said. “I’ve done a lot of cool things in music and theater, but this is by far the coolest.”
The audience is asked to wear funeral attire; the show will be held Friday, Oct. 17, at 8 p.m. Tickets can be found here for $20.
