Veruca Salt sings out in opera version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the gang search for their golden tickets

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  • I WANT ONE: Veruca Salt (mezzo-soprano Abigail Nims) demands an Oompa-Loompa from Willy Wonka (Daniel Okulitch) in a rehearsal for “The Golden Ticket” at Atlanta Opera headquarters. All of the famous characters from Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” will come to life in the new opera based on the classic children’s book. The show opens Saturday, March 3, at the Cobb Energy Centre.

Gluttonous Augustus Gloop. Gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde. Television-addicted Mike Teavee... The child-grotesques from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are legendary, but perhaps none more so than our own personal favorite: bratty, tantrum-throwing, 90s-band-inspiring diva-in-training Veruca Salt.

Creative Loafing caught up with mezzo-soprano Abigail Nims who plays Veruca in the Atlanta Opera’s production of The Golden Ticket, the new operatic version of Dahl’s beloved children’s story which opens at the Cobb Energy Center on Saturday, March 3, to get the low-down on playing the ultimate diva.

An opera based on “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” seems likely to draw a lot of people who don’t normally go to the opera: fans of the book, fans of the films, kids dragged there by their parents. Is it an opera that can appeal to non-opera fans?
I think that’s exactly what it is. Being an opera singer I’m so used to coming in to various cities and people asking what opera I’m performing in: I tell them and then the conversation stops immediately. But when I tell them I’m performing The Golden Ticket based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, their faces just light up and they say, “Hmm. Maybe I should go see that. I’ve never been to an opera.” I think it’s absolutely perfect for people who have never been to the opera before. It’s in English, and it’s a story everyone knows. It incorporates so much of the book, and visually it’s a fabulous production. The costumes and sets are wonderful. It’s a richly varied score musically. The music is complicated, but the beauty of it is that it doesn’t sound that way to the audience. It’s quite accessible music with a lot of beautiful melodies. There’s a lot of variety in that the characters all have their own musical language.