John Adams: Girls of the Golden West (Opera & Stage Choice – July 2024)
The latest opera from John Adams dazzles with great solo turns, says Claire Jackson in her review...
John Adams
Girls of the Golden West
Julia Bullock (soprano), Davóne Tines (bass-baritone), Paul Appleby (tenor) et al; Los Angeles Philharmonic/John Adams
Nonesuch 7559790049 123:26 mins (2CD)
Like The Death of Klinghoffer, Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic, John Adams’s new opera Girls of the Golden West considers a critical moment in American history: the gold rush that inspired the California Dream – and all the dazzling inequality that went with it.
The timing is interesting. Since the 2008 financial crash there has been renewed interest in gold, a fascination that plays out in reality TV shows such as Aussie Gold Hunters that follow enterprising – and often eccentric – metal detectorists attempting to find nuggets left behind by the first mining wave.
Librettist Peter Sellars draws from original sources to create characters that represent those propping up some people’s new-found wealth: care-worn miners Joe Cannon and Clarence, Ned Peters, a formerly enslaved man on the run, and Josefa Segovia, Ah Sing and Dame Shirley, the three real-life women from the opera’s title.
'The influence of Ives can be heard in the shifting layers'
The spiky rhythms of the opening suggest horses’ hooves, machinery, pick axes plunging into the soil, or, at the end of Act I, something more ominous – a musical emblem that appears throughout. The influence of Ives can be heard in the shifting layers; once a funeral march, now a Fourth of July celebration.
As Dame Shirley, Julia Bullock is on scintillating form, particularly as she acts out the part of Lady MacBeth in Act II. Davóne Tines, who came to UK prominence at last year’s Classical Pride, has a rounded bass-baritone that is perfect as the gruff Ned Peters. The male voices of the Los Angeles Master Chorale brilliantly create the brooding mob of miners. Claire Jackson