Story of ‘Golden West’ speaks to plight today

In a “Girls of the Golden West” prepremiere conversation onstage at the San Francisco Opera House on Tuesday, Nov. 21, director/librettist Peter Sellars, along with longtime opera collaborator and composer John Adams, told dramaturg Kip Cranna they’ve been working on the project for years because “everyone’s always talking about California.”

Sellars seemed turned on, animated, eager to share ideas — perfect qualities for a collaborator. He and Adams have worked on the operas “Nixon in China,” “The Death of Klinghoffer” and “Doctor Atomic.” “What John’s music gives you,” said Sellars, “is the sound of America . ... The heartbreak is there at the same time as the idealism.”

Echoing that assessment, when opera General Director Matthew Shilvock presented Adams (the first composer to be so honored) with the San Francisco Opera Medal, he praised Adams for “giving us ways to better understand the nature of the world.” Adams first praised Sellars, then acknowledged the current state of that “nature of the world.”

“‘Girls of the Golden West’ is very much about right now,” said Adams in accepting the award. “I had no idea when I started work on this that this country would be in this situation we are in right now . ... What gives me hope right now is that I live in California.”

In conversation at a cast party in the Green Room after the performance, Adams elaborated. Current troubling headlines, he said, are aligned with the troubling themes of the opera: racial violence and violence to women. Last year, when he was composing the music, he remembered turning on the TV and watching crowds scream “Lock her up! Lock her up!” Similarly, the opera depicts crowd anger, lust for violence.

Adams gives anyone to whom he talks the gift of focusing on the conversation, even when, as at this party, he is surrounded by admirers and cast members. With his wife, landscape photographer Deborah O’Grady ,he applauded as each singer, each designer was lauded. Visually, only the medal around his neck would identify him as the central figure of the gathering.

P.S. The composer’s 9-month-old granddaughter, Agnes Adams, attended the dress rehearsal for the new opera, said the Adamses, in a Snugli worn by their daughter. Agnes made it about 80 percent of the way through, he said, and she was singing along with the music.

P.P.S. This wasn’t a gala season opening night, so the big jewels and diamonds weren’t out, but two outfits deserve mention: Ballerina Lorena Feijóo, who, as Lola Montez, does the Spider Dance in the opera, arrived at the cast party with a huge spider tucked into the front of her dress. And costume designer Rita Ryack, obviously grasping the message in the material, wore a shirtwaist dress in a print emblazoned with images of Barack Obama and the American flag.

Queen of San Francisco society Denise Hale met Pixar’s John Lasseter about five years ago through her good friend Graydon Carter, outgoing editor of Vanity Fair magazine. The day Lasseter announced he’d be taking a leave, Hale called to defend him. “In the case of John Lasseter,” she said, “one thing I know: He’s my friend and he’s not a sleazeball. There’s a difference between someone who gives a compliment and someone who makes vulgar passes. They’re two different things. Now there’s going to be a witch hunt, and I think many lives will be ruined for nothing. My friend John Lasseter is not a sleazeball.”

Hale always stresses loyalty to one’s friends. Carter’s definitely a member of the Hollywood in crowd, but that hasn’t compromised his instincts as a journalist and editor. Almost immediately after that leave announcement, VanityFair.com featured two stories: One about Lasseter allegedly making unwanted sexual advances (“Lasseter often crossed boundaries,” wrote Rebecca Keegan and Nicole Sperling), and a second about Pixar and women (“Pixar has long been a classic boys’ club, led by Lasseter’s example,” wrote Yohana Desta).

Installment two of the Dire Warnings Gazette: “When it comes to online holiday shopping this year,” say the PR folks hawking an anti-malware program, “one Internet security team says computer infections could double during the shopping season . ... This year, newly designed email phishing attacks could spell even more trouble.”