John Adams discusses his 2017 opera "Girls of the Golden West," which is set during the 1850s California Gold Rush. Adams and collaborator Peter Sellars created a colorful and realistic portrait of this tempestuous moment in history, drawing on harrowing real-life events and rich original sources from the era-letters, journals, newspaper articles, and miner song lyrics-to create the libretto.
The world premiere recording of "Girls of the Golden West" is out now on Nonesuch Records:
johnadams.lnk.to/girlsofthegoldenwest
Learn more about "Girls of the Golden West": bit.ly/GirlsofTheGoldenWestInfo
Music:
"Girls of the Golden West"
Music by John Adams
Libretto compiled from original sources by Peter Sellars
Performed by Julia Bullock, Davóne Tines, Paul Appleby, Hye Jung Lee, Elliot Madore, Daniela Mack, and Ryan McKinny; Los Angeles Master Chorale (Grant Gershon); the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and John Adams
Courtesy of Nonesuch Records
Film by Jesse Yang
Images:
Sailing card for the clipper ship California (ca. 1850) by GF Nesbitt & Co; “Chilean method” and “French miners working” from Le Tour du monde (1862) by Gustave-Adophe Chassevent-Bacques; “Industrial history of the United States” (1878) by Albert Sidney Bolles; California Gold Rush US stamp (1948) by US Bureau of Engraving and Printing; “Interpretation programs mine California’s Gold Rush Sesquicentennial” by US National Park Service; “Mining on the American River near Sacramento” (ca. 1852); by George H. Johnson; “Entrance to the Golden Rule Mine in Tuolumne County, California” (1873), courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration; “San Francisco’s horror of earthquake and fire” (1906) by James Russel Wilson; “Of a Man Who Fell Among Thieves” (1861) by George du Maurier; “California Gold Diggers, Mining Operations on the Western Shore of the Sacramento River” by Kellogg & Comstock, New York and Hartford; “Chinese, Gold Mining in California [illustration]” by Roy D. Graves; Chinese miner (1875), courtesy of Oakland Museum of California; “Gold miners, El Dorado, California” (ca. 1848-1853), retrieved from the Library of Congress; “Group of miners [daguerreotype]” (ca. 1850s), courtesy of California Historical Society Digital Collection; "Women in an early San Francisco bordello on the Barbary Coast” (1890), courtesy of San Francisco History Center; Gold Rush flyer (1849); "Protecting The Settlers [illustration]” (1864) by JR Browne; “People in a Nome gold mine” (ca. 1903) by H. G. Simmer; “Road scene in Gold Rush California, with Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, settlers, and gold prospectors [print]” (ca. 1856) by Charles Christian Nahl, courtesy of UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library via California Digital Library; “Group of white and Chinese miners at a sluice box in Auburn Ravine” (1852) by Joseph Blaney Starkweather, courtesy of California State Library via California Digital Library; “Five prospectors panning for gold in a creek, Alaska” (1897) by Frank La Roche; “Woman and Men in California Gold Rush” (1850); 1850s Downieville (1893) by William Downie; “Hanging of Juanita in Downieville” (1893) by William Downie.