Sixty years ago New York City Opera premiered Aaron Copland's "folk opera" The Tender Land. To commemorate the anniversary, on June 13 - 14 New York City's Chelsea Opera, led by newly appointed Music Director and Principal Conductor Samuel McCoy, will present a chamber version of the work that Murry Sidlin created in 1987 in a staged production with chamber orchestra.
Set in the rural Midwest in the 1930s, the opera is not only folk-inspired but incorporates a few folk songs. "One of the things I love about this opera," says McCoy, "is the way Copland creates an image of the expansiveness of rural America with his use of beautiful melodic motives and open harmonies." That will come as no surprise to those familiar with the composer through his concert and ballet works such as Appalachian Spring and Rodeo.
Walker Evans's Depression-era photographs helped inspire the creation of The Tender Land. Upon seeing one particular dust bowl-era photograph, a famous one of a young woman in front of a shack holding a child, Copland is said to have told librettist Eric Johns: "There's our opera." Though the family drama is set in the depression, it references the McCarthy hearings of the Cold War era that Copland had had personal experience with.
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