Friday, November 17, 2017

Girls of the Golden West: Go See It!

If you read this blog, you know that next week San Francisco Opera will present the premiere run of performances of Girls of the Golden West, by John Adams, libretto by Peter Sellars, directed by Peter Sellars.

I have not seen it, I have heard only the short orchestra bit "Lola Montez Does the Spider Dance," I have seen the same public photos everyone else has, but I'm telling you, get a ticket and see this. It's not often that a great composer like Adams writes an opera, and lots of composers - I'm looking at you, Ludwig van - don't have the theatrical flair you need to write successful operas. So Adams is sitting in a particular sweet spot in musical history, along with, say, Mozart, Berg, Britten, Shostakovich, and a few others I could name who excelled in orchestra music, chamber music, and operas.

So get a ticket. I haven't read the libretto yet, haven't seen the staging, haven't heard a note of the music. There's likely to be some terrific music, even if, at the end of the night, you are scratching your head about one or another aspect of the opera.

Here are a couple of previews, by Georgia Rowe and Michael Cooper:



6 comments:

Unknown said...

It's interesting to me how few pre-premiere stories have shown up, particularly in the SF media. One would think that nothing important is happening.

Lisa Hirsch said...

There was something in SFCV and an article in the Chron Pink section last week.

CruzSF said...

KALW’s Open Air had a segment on the opera last week. For some reason, the host spoke only to the men involved.

Lisa Hirsch said...

GROAN.

JSC said...

I saw the final dress and was disappointed in SO many ways. One of which being for an opera about GIRLS of the Golden West, it sure did seem to focus a lot on the men. :-\

Lisa Hirsch said...

I was at the final dress also, and at the premiere, and yeah. Huge disappointment.