Glimmerglass Opera Festival – Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land

Reviewed by Paula Citron

Aaron Copland’s 1954 opera The Tender Land is filled to the brim with his rural sound – his authentic American musical voice, as it were – but the work is tedious except for the second act hoedown.

The opera was inspired by the 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with photographs of Depression era southern sharecroppers by Walker Evans and text by James Agee. None of the beauty, majesty and pain of that book, however, ends up in the opera. High school graduate Laurie Moss feels restless. She falls in love with a drifter. He drifts on.

Glimmerglass’s Young American Artists do a terrific job, led by the sterling conductor Stewart Robertson. Tazewell Thompson provides the tasteful stage direction.

Vancouver-born tenor Chris Lysack plays mailman Mr. Splinters which shows off the purity of his clarion voice. Is there a heldentenor in his future?

The Tender Land continues at the Alice Busch Opera Theatre until Aug. 21.

The Tender Land
Glimmerglass Opera Festival
Composed by Aaron Copland
Conducted by Stewart Robertson
Directed by Tazewell Thompson
Starring Lindsay Russell, Andrew Stenson, Rebecca Jo Loeb, Stephanie Foley Davis, Chris Lysack, Joseph Barron, and Mark Diamond
Alice Busch Opera Theatre
Cooperstown, New York
Jul. 10 to Aug. 21, 2010