GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS: Land of Gold

Premieres Friday, November 1, 2024 at 8 p.m. on KPBS 2 / PBS App

“Land of Gold” examines the making of “Girls of the Golden West” at the San Francisco Opera and tells the tumultuous history of the California Gold Rush. Since the opera's title refers to Puccini's 1910 romantic opera “The Girl from the Golden West,” the opera by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams and famed director Peter Sellars tells a harder and more complex story through the letters of the Writer Louise Clappe, who lived in a mining settlement in 1850.

The documentary examines what happens behind the scenes during the opera's rehearsal process and highlights the creative process in which the actors and creative team grapple with the historical significance of the material and bring it to the stage.

Two stories are told: one on stage in the present and one in the past through the opera. In the opera, soprano Julia Bullock plays Louise Clappe with mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges as Josefa Segovia, two women among the many men searching for wealth in the lawless mountains.

Talent:

• Jon Else – Director
• John Adams – Music
• Julie Bullock – soprano, Louise Clappe in “Girls of the Golden West”
• Davóne Tines – bass-baritone, Ned Peters in “Girls of the Golden West”
• J'Nai Bridges – mezzo-soprano, Josefa Segovia in “Girls of the Golden West”
• Ryan McKinny – bass-baritone, Clarence King in “Girls of the Golden West”
• Paul Appleby – tenor, Joe Cannon in “Girls of the Golden West”
• Hye Jung Lee – soprano, Ah Sing in “Girls of the Golden West”
• Elliot Madore – baritone, Ramone in “Girls of the Golden West”
• Lorena Feijoo – dancer, Lola Montez in “Girls of the Golden West”
• Kai Brothers – Actress, Fayette in “Girls of the Golden West”

Notable facts:

• This is Jon Else's third documentary film with Adams, following Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic.
• This is one of several collaborations between Adams and Sellars following the operas Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, Doctor Atomic and I Was Looking At The Ceiling and Then I Saw The Sky.
• “Girls of the Golden West” is based on Louise Clappe’s “The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52,” available at the Library of Congress.

Check your schedule: GREAT SERVICES is available to stream simultaneously with broadcast on PBS.org and the PBS app, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.

Credits: “Land of Gold,” an AfterImage Public Media production in association with Bread and Butter Films, was directed by Jon Else and produced by Jon Else and Camille Servan-Schreiber; Richard Berge is executive producer. For GREAT PERFORMANCES, Bill O'Donnell is series producer and David Horn is executive producer.