#Reviews opera girls of the golden west full#

Michael Short/Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 3 of4 Girls of the Golden West cast member Julia Bullock portrays character Dame Shirley. Michael Short/Special to The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of4 Girls of the Golden West cast member Hye Jung Lee portrays character Ah Sing. Yet it comes across like an interpolated concert aria, suggesting both the strengths and shortcomings of this ambitious new opera.1 of4 From left, Girls of the Golden West cast members Hye Jung Lee, Julia Bullock, and JпїЅNai Bridges, poses for a portrait in the Wilsey Center Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco, CA, on Sunday October 29, 2017. TinesвЂ™s Ned mounts the stump to sing a stinging aria based on вЂњWhat to a Slave Is the Fourth of July?вЂќ - a bitterly powerful 1852 speech by Frederick Douglass. The enormous stump of a sequoia (one of many striking elements of David GropmanвЂ™s sets) becomes a makeshift stage for entertainments.ДЄt one point, Mr.

Sellars might have opted for a middle-ground approach and folded a few of ShirleyвЂ™s letters, like the revealing one about the Native Americans, along with other poems and speeches, into a libretto that told a clearer story.Дuring the second act, the encampment celebrates the Fourth of July. AdamsвЂ™s hazy, shimmering music, the lovers sound as if they were mere mouthpieces, singing past each other. But RamГіnвЂ™s words mostly come from the Gold Rush diary of a South American journalist, and JosefaвЂ™s from an Argentine poet. RamГіn smolders with rage, fearing that at any moment, the Americans could turn on him or abuse Josefa, a fear that leads to the operaвЂ™s harrowing conclusion. Two compelling singers, the baritone Elliot Madore and the mezzo-soprano JвЂ™Nai Bridges, bring poignant intensity to the roles of RamГіn and Josefa, a young Mexican couple who work at the bar. Joe finds comfort with a Chinese prostitute, Ah Sing (the brilliant coloratura soprano Hye Jung Lee), who decides that Joe, a client, would also make an ideal mate.

#Reviews opera girls of the golden west full#

The tenor Paul Appleby gives a dynamic performance as Joe Cannon, a miner who leaves behind a girl in Missouri, who then abandons him to marry a butcher back home, as Joe learns during a boisterous scene in a bar full of drunken miners. The rugged miners sing words taken from actual minersвЂ™ songs, set to rhythmically fractured music, enlivened with accordion and cow bells. Some exciting stretches, conducted with crackling energy and color by Grant Gershon, certainly convey the teeming wildness, racial animosity and lawless violence that roiled the West. But her story gets lost amid what comes across as a bold attempt to write the great California opera - a sweeping tale of the mad quest for fortune that was the mostly disastrous Gold Rush. The historical Dame Shirley was a fascinating woman with a pioneering spirit.

SellarsвЂ™s patched-together approach doesnвЂ™t work as well for вЂњGirls,вЂќ a work that cavalierly invites comparisons with PucciniвЂ™s вЂњLa Fanciulla del WestвЂќ (вЂњThe Girl of the WestвЂќ), an ItalianвЂ™s take on the Gold Rush. Though the results had awkward aspects, that opera maintained a strong narrative impetus: Its plot was driven by a countdown to the first detonation of a nuclear bomb. Sellars also assembled a libretto from poetry, journals and original documents. Sellars, which had its premiere here in 2005, Mr. Most of NedвЂ™s words come from the journals of fugitive slaves.ДЇor вЂњDoctor Atomic,вЂќ the previous collaboration between Mr. When Ned (the charismatic young bass-baritone DavГіne Tines) first appears, he describes himself in the third person: вЂњNed Peters was a hustler from Independence town,вЂќ Mr. вЂњNot dainty, simpering kid-gloved weaklings, but muscular, stalwart, dauntless young braves.вЂќ (The words come from Mark TwainвЂ™s вЂњRoughing It.вЂќ) McKinny sings lustily over skittish, pointillist music in the orchestra.

вЂњIt was a driving, vigorous, restless population,вЂќ Mr. The opera opens with Clarence, a hearty miner (the exuberant bass-baritone Ryan McKinny), who sets up the story almost as if giving a lecture.