Strong performances from a quartet of male singers and excellent work from the San Francisco Opera male chorus suggested that if the opera were titled “Guys and Girls of the Golden West” it would be fully justified. The Guys: Ryan McKinny, Paul Appleby, Elliot Madore and Davóne Tines Lee, who was memorable as Madame Mao in the first San Francisco Opera performances of Adams’ most famous work, was an engaging presence, adding vocal sparkle to her scene in her bedroom workplace. South Korean coloratura soprano Hye Jung Lee was Ah Sing, who, through judicious management of her earnings from selling sexual favors to the miners, has achieved financial comfort.
Theatrically, the meatiest of the three principal female roles, Bridges brought dramatic intensity to a part that includes a love affair and marriage proposal, her killing of an unwanted suitor who attempts her rape, and her death at the hands of a lynch mob. Washington mezzo-soprano J’nai Bridges sang the role Josefa Segovia, who bartends and works the tables at the gold-mining community’s Empire Hotel. For the hotel to survive, we are assured, it requires an attractive woman (like Bridges’ Josefa) working there. The opera is loosely based on the experiences of “Dame Shirley”, the nom de plume of an historical figure – a doctor’s wife who wrote 23 literary epistles describing her experiences in the gold fields of Northeastern California (although librettist Sellars has fictionalized much of her story). The part of Dame Shirley was stylishly sung by Missouri soprano Julia Bullock in her San Francisco Opera debut. The Girls: Julia Bullock, J’Nai Bridges and Hye Jung Lee Their collaboration produced an opera that chronicles the impact of California’s Gold Rush on seven principal characters, as declining prospects for gold inflamed racial and ethnic tensions in their mining community.
Sellars and Adams joined forces again for “Girls of the Golden West”, with Sellars as both director and librettist. Three decades ago the team of composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars (with librettist Alice Goodman) created “Nixon in China”, one of the most durable operatic works of the late 20th century.
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