Girls of the Golden West is more Ken Burns than Puccini
World Arts & Cultures/Dance Distinguished Professor and famed theater director Peter Sellars provided the libretto for Girls of the Golden West, called "the most eagerly anticipated new opera of the season" (The New York Times). Girls opened at the San Francisco Opera on November 21 and runs on select dates through December 10, 2017.
"San Francisco Opera is presenting the world premiere of John Adams’ and Peter Sellars’ gold-rush opera, Girls of the Golden West. And while the title playfully suggests a kinship to David Belasco’s 1905 play, The Girl of the Golden West, and Giacomo Puccini’s 1910 Italian opera, La fanciulla del West, this new work has a lot more in common with Ken Burns in the way it approaches this seminal event in American history.
Through its use of documentary source material and historic visual references, the opera presents a multi-cultural panoramic view of the California gold rush. And while Adams and Sellars appreciate the romance, they are not interested in enveloping their audience in a golden haze of nostalgia. Rather, they explore the darker realities of the gold rush that continue to plague American society today — disparities between rich and poor, acts of violence toward people of color and Native Americans, ecological destruction, and the abuse of women.When Adams and Sellars created their landmark historical operas: Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic, they had a specific framework of events to follow, whether it was Nixon meeting with Chairman Mao, the Palestinians hijacking the Achille Lauro, or the race to develop the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos.Like a Ken Burns documentary, Girls of the Golden West unfolds as an historical tapestry that weaves together parallel storylines — from the era of discovery in 1848 when gold was plentiful and there was camaraderie among the miners, to 1851 when gold had to be hewn from the rock. Failure was common, along with death from accidents, disease, and alcohol driven violence.Sellars’ libretto stitches together several historic events based on accounts drawn from newspaper clippings, historical writing by academics like Josiah Royce, and first hand accounts, most notably the Shirley Letters, an extensively detailed journal written by Louise Clappe under the pen name, “Dame Shirley."Girls of the Golden West may not possess the pinpoint focus of Nixon or Klinghoffer. It is, however, an exceedingly powerful opera and a timely expression of who we are — then and now. Future productions are planned for Dallas Opera and the Dutch National Opera. — Jim Farber, Nov. 29, 2017
This post is an excerpt, read the full article at the LA Opus website.