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One of those "other" voices is the character Ah Sing, a Chinese prostitute who dreams of buying a farm. "Hollywood was filtering everything through its basically white version of the world and you want to just say, 'Where are the other voices?' And they're here," Sellars says.
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#JOHN ADAMS OPERA GIRLS OF THE GOLDEN WEST TV#
TV and movies, Sellars believes, have had their own narrow-minded take on the so-called "wild west." "And none of that is reflected in the standard treatment of this stuff for entertainment purposes." "It's human beings pushed to their limits," he says. And while there are a few laughs along the way, Peter Sellars, the director and librettist, says it's a tough life. What do we do about minorities, what do we do about immigrants?"Īdams' new opera is set in a gritty mining camp during the Gold Rush, where a multi-ethnic cast of characters struggles to get rich quick and live peaceably with each other. "This is the tension of different communities coming together, and we're still facing this as a nation today. "This isn't Debbie Reynolds singing in her petticoats," she says. The Gold Rush might invoke images of happy-go-lucky miners panning for shiny nuggets, but author and historian Marlene Smith-Baranzini says not to expect a lighthearted western from Adams' new opera. Girls of the Golden West, his new opera, received its world premiere Nov. Now, Adams turns to the California Gold Rush. His works have traced the birth of the atomic bomb, President Nixon's trip to China and the 9-11 attacks. John Adams might be called the "documentarian" among American composers. Miners on stage for a rehearsal of Girls of the Golden West, the new opera by John Adams and Peter Sellars, which premiered at the San Francisco Opera Nov.