Sellars's previous collaborations with Adams have included premiere productions of Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic (for which Sellars also wrote the libretto). According to Sellars, "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." Adams wrote, "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 also directed the opera, conceived the libretto while doing research for a production of Giacomo Puccini's 1910 opera La fanciulla del West (based on David Belasco's 1905 play The Girl of the Golden West), which also deals with the gold rush period. The libretto is also sourced from other literature of the period, including newspaper articles and the writings of Mark Twain. Clappe published the letters under the pen name Dame Shirley. The opera is inspired by the 1851/1852 letters of Louise Clappe, who lived for a year and a half in the mining settlement of Rich Bar (now Diamondville, California) during the California Gold Rush. The opera was premiered in San Francisco on November 21, 2017. The San Francisco Opera commissioned the work jointly with Dallas Opera, the Dutch National Opera (De Nationale Opera) and Teatro La Fenice in Venice. His works, both operatic and symphonic, stand out among contemporary classical compositions for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound, and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. At Cinevent, Columbus O., 5/13.Girls of the Golden West is an opera in two acts with music by John Adams and a libretto by Peter Sellars. Composer, conductor, and creative thinkerJohn Adams occupies a unique position in the world of American music. "The Golden West" is a tough slog except maybe for George O'Brien fans. John Adams' celebration of his 70th birthday is crowned with a new opera, Girls of the Golden West, which enjoys its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera.Drawn to the character of the eastern-born wife of a doctor who re-located to the west coast at the time of the Gold Rush, Adams and his frequent collaborator Peter Sellars have crafted an unfamiliar and compelling picture of a powder. The acting is sub-par, but O'Brien is stalwart and masculine and he gets some help from Bert Hanlon as an Irish/Jewish traveling salesman. Ultimately, the film becomes less interesting as a good story peters out into confusion. In 1985, Adams began a collaboration with stage director Peter Sellars that has resulted in three decades of groundbreaking operas and oratorios: Nixon in China (1987), The Death of Klinghoffer (1991), both to libretti by Alice Goodman, El Niño (2000), Doctor Atomic (2005), A Flowering Tree (2006), The Gospel According to the Other Mary (2012) and Girls of the Golden West (2017). Too much plot contrivance squashed in to a picture which needed more run time. They capture the settlers, but soon after he becomes an ally of the U.S. One day he and a raiding party come upon settlers, including the daughter of the ex-girlfriend of his father. Fast forward twenty years, after O'Brien and Chandler move west and are slaughtered by marauding Indians, leaving their young son to be captured. George O'Brien is the hero of the piece, and it begins as he graduates from an eastern college, on a stagecoach with his bride-to-be, played by Janet Chandler. Law enforcement sources reportedly told TMZ that the actor might have died from a. I would say it has too much plot, and is actually a saga or an epic type film, but condensed here to 74 minutes. Bob Saget’s cause of death may have been related to a 'sudden medical emergency,' according to a new TMZ report. It was hard to take this picture seriously since the plot was so contrived and beyond believability.