![]() “Her descriptive language was wonderful, she seemed like a very honest individual, and she honored all the people who were there, while also being critical of the things that were not handled well, and for that I respect her very much. “Dame Shirley was trying to give the clearest, most accurate account of the mining camps,” says soprano Julia Bullock, who portrays her in the opera. Known as Dame Shirley, she was one of a handful of women who braved the rough-and-tumble life of the camps unlike the opera’s other “girls” - Chinese prostitute Ah Sing and the Mexican tavern worker Josefa - Dame Shirley’s status as an upper-class white woman spared her much of the insults, sexism and abuse the others suffered. “Girls of the Golden West” marks another collaboration between Adams and director-librettist Peter Sellars, who drew material from “The Shirley Letters,” a breezy set of 23 letters by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe depicting the colorful, though often brutal, socio-economic landscape of the camps.Ĭlappe, East Coast-born and educated, arrived in California in September 1851 with her husband, a doctor, who tended the miners. (Courtesy Scott Wall/San Francisco Opera) And I’ve been so fascinated by the history of California and that we are a thoroughly multicultural state.” San Francisco Opera’s premiere of Bay Area composer John Adams’ “Girls of the Golden West” opens Nov. The opportunity to compose a work based on the location I’m very familiar with has been a special experience. “I have a bungalow only a few miles from where the events of this opera take place. “I’ve had a very strong connection to the geography,” Adams says. ![]() ![]() Unlike its Italian namesake, Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” (“Girl of the Golden West”), a romanticized version of the Gold Rush, Adams’ two-act “Girls” is an historically accurate account of the diversity of California mining camps in the early 1850s. 21, when the company presents the world premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Bay Area composer’s “Girls of the Golden West.” San Francisco Opera’s long record of staging works by John Adams - including “Nixon in China,” “The Death of Klinghoffer” and “Doctor Atomic” - grows longer Nov. ![]()
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