The world premiere recording of
John Adams
'
Girls of the Golden West
here is taken from the opera's 2023 Los Angeles premiere (in a concert setting) at Walt Disney Hall with the composer conducting. It brings nearly the entire cast from the 2017 world premiere (the only change being mezzo-soprano
Daniela Mack
in place of
J'Nai Bridges
in the role of Josefa). The cast is led by soprano
Julia Bullock
as Dame Shirley (aka Louise Clappe, whose letters were the basis for much of the libretto), and it is abundantly clear how thoroughly vested they are in their characters and
Adams
' music. Rather than focusing on just one "girl" during California's gold rush,
Peter Sellers
, the librettist and the opera's director, chooses three women on which to focus: Shirley as she observes life in the difficult mining town of Rich Bar; Ah Sing (soprano
Hye Jung Lee
), a Chinese immigrant who fell into the perilous and lonely life of a sex worker; and Josefa Segovia, a Mexican-American woman who became infamous as the first and only woman to be executed by hanging in California.
Sellers
also shines a light on other difficulties of the era, such as the case of Ned Peters (baritone
Davóne Tines
), a fugitive slave who stuns the miner town crowd in the second Act with a riveting ode to
Frederick Douglass
' speech, "What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July?" Beyond Clappe's letters and
Douglass
' speech,
uses sources ranging from news articles, folk songs of the era, and accounts from
Mark Twain
's book Roughing It. The story is evocative and delivers an account of how tumultuous life actually was for those living through it.
shows no sign of slowing down as a composer, and those who have enjoyed his previous theatrical or orchestral works will certainly find plenty to enjoy here. ~ Keith Finke