Two titans in the modern-day world of opera — composer John Adams and director/librettist Peter Sellars — are working together on a new opera about women during California’s Gold Rush that will premiere in San Francisco next year, according to the San Francisco Opera (SF Opera).
SF Opera director David Gockley announced the commission of Girls of the Golden West Tuesday morning, highlighting the fact that the work will feature a libretto from Sellars, who is also directing.
The new opera, which is reportedly based on factual events, follows three women living in a small mining town during the Gold Rush of the 1850s, a period in time Adams has called “California’s first bubble.”
The story idea came to Sellars while he was researching another project set during the Gold Rush era.
“While I was doing research to create a new production of Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West for a European company, I uncovered a treasure trove of fascinating historical and literary descriptions of accounts from the California Gold Rush, unveiling vivid and fascinating personalities, events and situations,” Sellars said. “These true stories of the forty-niners are overwhelming in their heroism, passion and cruelty, telling tales of racial conflicts, colorful and humorous exploits, political strife and struggles to build anew a life and to decide what it would mean to be American.”
