Girls of the Golden West by John Adams, or the very dark side of the gold rush

Girls of the Golden Westthe fourth opera by John Adams, sets to music a new page in the history of the United States: the gold rush.

If we exclude opera-oratorios (of the type The Niño) of his catalog, we notice that the operas strictly speaking by John Adams are devoted to pages of the history of his country. After East-West relations (Nixon in China), the Palestinian problem (The Death of Klinghofer), the atomic bomb (Doctor Atomic), John Adams revives the gold rush (1848-1856) including, respectively from 1910 and 1925, Giacomo Puccini (The Girl from the Wild West) and Charlie Chaplin and had already portrayed the dark side. Composed from multiple sources, Girls of the Golden West darkens the picture. The composer’s quasi-official librettist, Peter Sellars has once again transformed himself into a bookworm: Girls of the Golden West is based on some notoriety (The hard way by Mark Twain or Macbeth by Shakespeare) but especially on the letters that Louise Clappe, before publishing them in serial form under the pseudonym Dame Shirley, regularly sent from the Sierra Nevada to her sister who remained in the East.

Girls of the Golden Westan opera in two acts lasting 2 hours and 10 minutes created in San Francisco in 2017, features seven characters, Act I of which, in the style of a long exposition scene, paints very fine portraits. Parity is almost respected between Clarence and Joe (two minors), Ned (cook, recently freed slave), Ramfromn (bartender at the saloon) and Josefa (barmaid), Ah Sing, Chinese prostitute and Lady Shirley. The latter unravels the financial, racial and sexist issues of this microcosm in which she followed her banker husband, a look which is not without evoking the retrospective eye of Captain Vere by Benjamin Britten in Billy Budd. Act II, whose action takes place on the 4th of July (quite a symbol in the United States, their national holiday), also more explicit in its description of what humanity can condense into male toxicity, concludes on the astonishment of a lynching perpetrated by a pack: no girl from Puccini’s Wild West comes to Adams to loosen the rope that Josefa will have tied around her own neck, for having, in self-defense, dared to stab the minor who wanted to rape her.

For his Once upon a time in the West operatic, John Adams claims to have composed the most direct and simple music of his entire career. He confesses to having wanted to return to his eight years of age and, to do so, having had to “jump over” Cage and Stockhausen. As if struck by urgency, the first measures actually burst forth like another West Sidethat of Leonard Bernstein. The sequel, very contrasting, resurrects a Wild West full of pulsation and chiaroscuro. Very numerous, the choirs (of men of course) are as usual with Adams, magnificently written, they go from innocent initial drinking songs to terrifying and very “Petergrimsian” That Joe et It’s four long years since I reached this land finals poured out by the howling pack. The vocal lines of the soloists display the burning lyricism generally found in all American operas. Whether or not she tries her hand at flirting with traditional singing (the Ballad of Ah Sing of Act II or the Come this much by Josefa), the orchestral virtuosity of John Adams is manifest, and even captivating, to the detriment, as we have seen since Doctor Atomicwith a truly memorable melodic sense.

On the girls side, Julia Bullock (intense ambitus), Hye Jung Lee (radiant coloratura), Daniela Mack (dark mezzo); boys side, Paul Appleby (percussive tenor), Ryan McKinny and Elliott Madore Davfromne Tines (splendid trio of dark baritones): the cast has no weak link. John Adams, at the head of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a perfect ambassador of his work. As for the sound recording, as always with Nonesuch, it’s an absolute marvel. While waiting for, perhaps (as cinema has done since the 1970s), Peter Sellars and John Adams to soon stage the massacre of Native American peoples, we can already rush to the “unfathomable splendor » (these are the last words of Dame Shirley) of these Girls of the Golden West.

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John Adams (born 1947): Girls of the Golden West, opera in two acts with a libretto by Peter Sellars, based on different sources: Mark Twain, Louise Clappe, William Shakespeare, Rosalía de Castro, Alfonsina Storni, Ramón Gil Navarro , Frederick Douglass, Cantonese Poems. With: Julia Bullock, soprano (Dame Shirley); Daniela Mack, mezzo-soprano (Josefa Segovia); Hye Jung Lee, coloratura soprano (Ah sing); Elliot Madore, Baritone (Ramón); Paul Appleby, tenor (Joe Cannon); Davóne Tines, baritone (Ned Peters); Ryan McKinny, baritone (Clarence). Los Angeles Master Chorale (choir director: Grant Gershon) and Los Angeles Philharmonic, conductor: John Adams. 2 CDs Nonesuch. Recorded at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on January 27 and 29, 2023. 72-page presentation notice in English. Duration: 58:33 + 68:14

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