SMALL TOWN, BIG VOICE BY LEX NELSON
W How an opera singer from Rupert, Idaho, stepped onto the world stage.
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When Cecilia Violetta López goes home to the small town of Rupert, Idaho, she doesn’t get to laze around and relax. Instead, her mother puts her to work behind the counter of her modest Mexican restaurant, Loncheria El Viente. “Whenever I go home people are like, ‘You’re here on vacation, right?’ and I say, ‘No, no, no, I’m here to work,’” López said, laughing. “I’m there. It’s like riding a bike. You never forget how
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to go in there and help Mom make the chile relleno. Every day there’s a different special. There’s the grind, the hustle!” In her life outside of Rupert, López is an internationally renowned soprano. She has performed with Opera Idaho, Opera San José in California, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and Zomeropera in Belgium, among others. In 2017, a reviewer for The New York Times wrote that, “Her passionate
