Girls of the Golden West, released April 26, 2024, is John Adams’ eighth music theater work to be released by Nonesuch Records. Adams’ stage works are among the most performed contemporary operas of our time and include Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, El Niño, and Doctor Atomic.
Girls of the Golden West is a California opera, telling the story of the Gold Rush not through familiar time-worn myth, but in the words and deeds of real people: in the words of Mark Twain, “the strangest population, the finest population … who ever trooped down the startled solitudes of an unpeopled land.”
Longtime Adams collaborator Peter Sellars drew from original sources from the Gold Rush era: letters, journals, newspaper articles, and familiar song lyrics to create the libretto.
The composer leads the LA Phil in this recording made in Disney Hall.
Grammy Award nominee for Best Opera Recording and Best Engineered Album, Classical
Cast:
Dame Shirley — Julia Bullock
Ned Peters — Davóne Tines
Joe Cannon — Paul Appleby
Ah Sing — Hye Jung Lee
Clarence — Ryan McKinny
Josefa Segovia — Daniela Mack
Ramón — Elliot Madore
John Adams, conductor
Los Angeles Philharmonic