Canadian-born Michelle Berting Brett heard it often: from her very first years of being a professional singer, people told her she sounded like Karen Carpenter.

That, she says, “was really lovely. I grew up with the music. I love her singing. As time went on, more and more people would tell me — the sound men, monitor guys, audience members, other band members. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do a show of Carpenters music?’

“People would always say, ‘Could you do ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’? Can you sing ‘Close to You’? Do you know ‘Superstar’? So I knew the music really captured people’s hearts.”

Contemplating putting together a full-fledged production is one thing; actually doing it is quite another. Michelle and her husband, Mark Brett — who has worked at Mohegan Sun since its opening and now stage manages at the Wolf Den— discussed and built that idea. Michelle put some songs together and, on April 20, 2009, presented a small show with a pianist at a little cabaret club in Toronto.

The SRO audience, she recalls, “really responded beautifully to it, singing along. Almost every single person said, ‘You made me cry,’ which is great. To move people emotionally is always the goal of an artist, right?”

Over time, that singer-and-pianist piece grew into an all-out Carpenters-music-focused concert, with Mark serving as producer. Last year, Michelle and a seven-person band did 15 performances around the country, and they have a gig coming up Sunday at the Wolf Den, with “We’ve Only Just Begun: Carpenters Remembered.”

In December, they’re scheduled to do their “Merry Christmas Darling: Carpenters Remembered” show at the Wolf Den, just as they did last holiday season.

To be clear, Michelle isn’t doing an impersonation of Karen Carpenter.

“To me, it was really about honoring the music most of all,” she says.

It’s about the music, yes, but also about the Carpenters’ lives and their contribution to music. Since Mark has worked at Mohegan Sun for 18 years, he’s had the opportunity to talk to various stars and has heard their Carpenters reminiscences. Peter Noone, for instance, told the Bretts how he was backstage at a London TV variety show in the 1970s with David Bowie and The Carpenters.

“I guess, without batting an eye, Richard said, ‘This piano is a half-tone out of tune,’” she says.

Noone and Bowie exchanged glances. When they got a piano tuner in there, though, the piano was, in fact, a half-tone out of tune.

Some of those tales are woven into the Bretts’ Carpenters shows.

“It warmed me to know how deeply respected they were in the industry by other musicians, not only for their success — I think they still hold the record for most top 10 singles in a row — but they had such respect for their talent,” Michelle says.

The show, though, steers away from Karen Carpenter’s tragic death; she died at age 32 in 1983 from heart failure caused by complications related to anorexia.

“It’s more about the celebration of their legacy and their life and what they left us with,” Michelle says.

The band, meanwhile, consists of Nashville musicians who have played with a who’s who of the industry, from Donna Summer to Reba McEntire to the Monkees to Wynonna Judd. They’re led by music director Harry Sharpe.

Mark serves as the show’s producer. Michelle says, “It’s one thing to be the singer and to work on the artistic content, but you’re going to be performing the show in your living room unless you have somebody like Mark who’s willing to get on the phone and talk to people and tell them about the show and get a gig.”

They recently had management take them on, too — Rockhouse Productions.

Their run so far has included the likes of three sold-out engagements in Las Vegas and concerts in places like B.B. King’s in New York City. It was at the latter where May Pang, John Lennon’s former girlfriend, was in the audience and told Michelle afterward how much Lennon loved Karen Carpenter’s voice.

“People think, because it was such beautiful music, such pretty songs, that it’s lightweight. It’s not,” Michelle says. “It’s really complex arrangements and instrumentation. ... I think people forget how ground-breaking those arrangements were. Richard really brought an orchestral element into their arrangements, with the French horns on ‘Superstar,’ for instance, or the oboe, all those beautiful layered strings and of course all those layered vocals with him and Karen — just layer after layer after layer of harmonies that gave that really lush sound to their performances.”

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Michelle grew up as “a farm girl from Saskatchewan ... in the middle of the waving wheat fields.” Her father is a farmer, but he always played guitar and bass on the side. Michelle and her sisters used to sing and harmonize with him on all his favorite country songs.

Michelle went on to study opera and then music theater. She worked in show bands in Asia and Europe and did cabaret on cruise ships. She sang for the troops in Bosnia.

In 2008, she was touring with the Johnny Cash tribute show “Man in Black,” and the show played Mohegan Sun. That’s where she met Mark.

“We met at sound check and goofed around and laughed and talked. At the end of the night, we exchanged cards and then we emailed and started chatting on the phone,” recalls Michelle, who was based in Toronto at the time. (She says the couple now lives in “The Quiet Corner” of Connecticut.)

“A couple of months later, we started visiting each other.”

For three and a half years, they enjoyed a long-distance relationship. Then, during a “Man in Black” performance in Quebec City in 2011, Mark came onstage to propose marriage. It was quite a night, with a full moon, a full house — and Hell’s Angels in the front row.

As for Mark, he grew up in Columbia, Connecticut. His grandparents built a nightclub/restaurant called the Rock Garden in Willimantic in the 1930s, and his parents later took it over. When his grandparents were running it, Mark recalls helping out, washing dishes and sweeping up and making French fries. And he remembers the artists who played there and who later performed at the Wolf Den, like Joey Dee and the Starlighters, and the Cadillacs.

Mark tried his hand at music but says, “I realized that I’m a better behind-the-scenes guy.”

He eventually started doing concert photography, Mark says, after “not taking a camera into many events I wish I had.”

He was hired to shoot the first sanctioned event at the original Woodstock site after the legendary 1969 concert. He shot Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen in 1973, when they were performing at the ice rink at the University of Connecticut. He was there when the Rolling Stones played Foxborough Stadium.

When he first applied to Mohegan Sun, he not only had done photography but also had been a roadie with the James Cotton Blues Band.

He went in for his first interview with then-entertainment director Jackie Ferraro and recalls, “I’m sitting there in a suit and tie, my portfolio of rock photography, from the Stones to Tina Turner to Pete Townshend to whoever, and I knew what an amplifier was ...

“She said, ‘Well, I don’t know if we’ll need the suit and tie, but we could certainly use your expertise with your photography and also your roadie experience.’ So I was pretty much hired on the spot,” Mark says. “That was in ’96 and here we are today, 2015. It’s been an amazing ride, with opening the casino ... all the changes ... and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of shows.”

He has worked in various capacities there over that time, including as house photographer. He has primarily been the Wolf Den stage manager — where he’s the liaison between the artist, administration and technical crew — for the past 10 years.

As for his most prominent memories from all his time at the Sun, Mark says what stands out is, “instead of naming names, just really, really cool experiences.”

He recalls working with Chuck Negron from Three Dog Night and being able to tell him how he had gone to a Three Dog Night concert in the late 1960s at the Bushnell. Now, Mark got to see Negron, “who’s been through hell and back — he’s got a book that talks about his story — and there he is, just healthy and happy and still doing this thing.”

Part of what makes working in the Wolf Den so interesting is that the Sun folks work with a new artist’s team each night.

“It’s like a blender on puree,” Mark says. “You go from Charo to Skid Row to Del McCoury to Ronnie Spector to Eddie Money.”

And, on Sunday, to “Carpenters Remembered.” And when they perform at the Wolf Den, they’ll be offering their “fresh off the press” CD, which was recorded in Nashville.

If you go

What: "We've Only Just Begun: Carpenters Remembered"

Where: Mohegan Sun Wolf Den

When: 7 p.m. Sunday, July 12

Admission: Free

For info: mohegansun.com, weveonlyjustbegunshow.com

Also: "Merry Christmas Darling: Carpenters' Christmas" on Dec. 4 at Mohegan Sun Wolf Den