Girls of the Golden West (opera)

Girls of the Golden West is an opera in two acts with music by John Adams and a libretto by Peter Sellars. It was commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, jointly with Dallas Opera, the Dutch National Opera (De Nationale Opera) and Teatro La Fenice, Venice. As of June 2016, John Adams was in the process of composing music to accompany the libretto. The opera will be premiered in San Francisco in November 2017.

The opera is inspired by the 1851/1852 letters of Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe who lived for a year and a half in the mining settlement of Rich Bar, (now Diamondville, California), during the California Gold Rush period, which were published by her under the pen-name "Dame Shirley". The libretto is also sourced from other literature of the period, including newspaper articles and the writings of Mark Twain. Adams has stated "To be able to set to music the authentic voices of these people, whether from their letters or their songs or from newspaper accounts from their time, is a great privilege for me." Sellars, who will also direct the opera, conceived the libretto while researching for a production of Giacomo Puccini's 1910 opera La fanciulla del West, which also deals with the gold rush period, and is often translated into English as The Girl of the Golden West. He has commented "These true stories of the Forty-Niners are overwhelming in their heroism, passion and cruelty, telling tales of racial conflicts, colorful and humorous exploits, political strife and struggles to build anew a life and to decide what it would mean to be American."

Sellars's previous collaborations with Adams have included premiere productions of Adams's operas Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic (for which he also wrote the libretto).