There's a way of looking at Marina Costa-Jackson's operatic career as the most obvious development in the world. And there's a way of looking at it as a fairly improbable destination. The soprano makes her Utah Opera debut in a joint production that finds her playing Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci and Lauretta in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, but she's no stranger to Utah.

Her father is from Salt Lake City, and she studied at both Utah State University and the University of Utah. Yet her family roots also go back to Italy—specifically Palermo, where her mother was from, and where she lived for several years as a child, growing up speaking Italian while her father was in the Air Force.