Panning For Gold And Self-Awareness In John Adams' New Opera
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.
"John Adams might be called the "documentarian" among American composers. His works have traced the birth of the atomic bomb, President Nixon's trip to China and the 9-11 attacks. Now, Adams turns to the California Gold Rush. Girls of the Golden West, his new opera, received its world premiere Nov. 21 at the San Francisco Opera.
The Gold Rush might invoke images of happy-go-lucky miners panning for shiny nuggets, but author and historian Marlene Smith-Baranzini says not to expect a lighthearted western from Adams' new opera.
"This isn't Debbie Reynolds singing in her petticoats," she says. "This is the tension of different communities coming together, and we're still facing this as a nation today. What do we do about minorities, what do we do about immigrants?"
Adams' new opera is set in a gritty mining camp during the Gold Rush, where a multi-ethnic cast of characters struggles to get rich quick and live peaceably with each other. And while there are a few laughs along the way, Peter Sellars, the director and librettist, says it's a tough life.
"It's human beings pushed to their limits," he says. "And none of that is reflected in the standard treatment of this stuff for entertainment purposes."
TV and movies, Sellars believes, have had their own narrow-minded take on the so-called "wild west."
"Hollywood was filtering everything through its basically white version of the world and you want to just say, 'Where are the other voices?' And they're here," Sellars says. "It's time we can listen to them."— Tom Huizenga, Nov. 25, 2017
This post is an excerpt, read the full article at the KUNC website.
Read more about Distinguished Professor Peter Sellars here.