“After Marta Becket passed away on January 30, 2017, the Amargosa Opera House sought a way to keep the spirit of Marta’s magical Renaissance-inspired opera house alive with performances that would honor and sustain her legacy, especially with long-time patrons. Many wondered: “How will you keep the magic alive?… How will the show go on?”  Daniel Stallings, the impressario behind Master Mystery Productions, answered by bringing his troupe of talented opera singers and actors to the legendary stage in Death Valley Junction for a four performance run of Exit Prima Donna, his original murder mystery opera set in Venice in 1899.  Like the colorful phantasmagoria of characters on Marta’s opera house walls, each character of his 11-member cast and crew acted and sang brilliantly under the soft suffusion of coffee can lights. With the denouement in Act 3, the “sold out” audience was on their feet, the cast basking in the crescendo of their applause. At that moment, I could have sworn I saw a dance of shadow and light across the dome of the opera house — a silhouette of a pirouette, a spirited pas de bouree — as if Marta herself hovered above, celebrating the return of grand opera to her opera house.  Whodunnit?…Who made this magic? Why, the cast of Exit Prima Donna….eccellente!!….they even brought Marta Becket to her feet, once again!!”