![]() ![]() But her story gets lost amid what comes across as a bold attempt to write the great California opera - a sweeping tale of the mad quest for fortune that was the mostly disastrous Gold Rush. The historical Dame Shirley was a fascinating woman with a pioneering spirit. Sellars’s patched-together approach doesn’t work as well for “Girls,” a work that cavalierly invites comparisons with Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West” (“The Girl of the West”), an Italian’s take on the Gold Rush. Though the results had awkward aspects, that opera maintained a strong narrative impetus: Its plot was driven by a countdown to the first detonation of a nuclear bomb. Sellars also assembled a libretto from poetry, journals and original documents. Sellars, which had its premiere here in 2005, Mr. Most of Ned’s words come from the journals of fugitive slaves.įor “Doctor Atomic,” the previous collaboration between Mr. When Ned (the charismatic young bass-baritone Davóne Tines) first appears, he describes himself in the third person: “Ned Peters was a hustler from Independence town,” Mr. “Not dainty, simpering kid-gloved weaklings, but muscular, stalwart, dauntless young braves.” (The words come from Mark Twain’s “Roughing It.”) McKinny sings lustily over skittish, pointillist music in the orchestra. “It was a driving, vigorous, restless population,” Mr. The opera opens with Clarence, a hearty miner (the exuberant bass-baritone Ryan McKinny), who sets up the story almost as if giving a lecture. ![]() Sellars has selected come across onstage like statements or speeches, a device that becomes dramatically stilted. The character winds up seeming less the opera’s heroine than its narrator, telling us about her adventures in California. Bullock’s Shirley, facing the audience, actually directs her thoughts to us. The staging of the scene suggests that Shirley might be directing her words to Ned, a recently freed slave, now a cowboy, cook and musician, who is listening close by. She seems moved, curious and vulnerable, especially in Ms. Adams digs beneath Shirley’s words, however loaded they are with dated racial stereotypes, to reveal a well-educated and sensitive woman caught up in confused feelings. Listen to some of the best new recordings here. Classical Music: 2021 was a year of reawakening for the art form.Jazz Albums: Even the big-statement albums this year had a feeling of intense closeness.Pop Albums: Recordings with big feelings and room for catharsis made the most powerful connections.Best Songs: A posthumous political statement and a superstar’s 10-minute redo are among the 66 best tracks of 2021.From Lil Nas X to Mozart to Esperanza Spalding here is what we loved listening to this year. ![]()
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