Two Sides Of A Concert, Part II

The new John Adams opera “Girls of the Golden West” depicts the Gold Rush, an iconic moment in California history when people of different backgrounds suddenly came to live in the same place. With Adams, director Peter Sellars constructed much of the libretto from the letters of Louise Clappe, an educated woman who wrote under the pen name Dame Shirley while living in San Francisco and the Feather River mining communities. She is the opera’s central character; along with her are Ned Peters, a fugitive slave; and miners, barkeeps, and prostitutes of different races and ethnicities.I attended the second performance at San Francisco Opera, and spoke to a handful of audience members during and after the show.