A Story That Sings

“This is what you live for,” says Minnesota Opera artistic director Dale Johnson, referring to this month’s world premiere of The Grapes of Wrath, co-commissioned by the Utah Opera. Composer Ricky Ian Gordon is not yet a household name, but the opera, based on John Steinbeck’s classic novel, is creating an unusual amount of buzz.

There is little cachet in repeat engagements, so typically a new opera premieres and then disappears. This time, though, after a world premiere here and a run in Salt Lake City, the production travels to Pittsburgh and then Houston, which is particularly notable considering that the Houston Grand Opera has produced more new work than any other opera company in the nation.

“It’s about finding a hit show,” says Kevin Smith, the Minnesota Opera’s president of twenty years. “We tried a lot of things and feel like we found the right combination of subject and composer and librettist to take Minnesota Opera to the next level.”

A world premiere is a major undertaking, and the Minnesota Opera has a lot more than its reputation riding on this one. An opera usually costs around $1 million to produce. Commissioning fees, workshop expenses, and dramaturgical support for a new opera add more than $800,000 to that. Smith expects the final total to approach $1.9 million. When asked why the Minnesota Opera does it—taking on all the extra work, expense, and risk—Smith admits there isn’t a logical reason.

“It’s all about the creative impulse,” says Johnson. “Recreating and interpreting work is wonderful, but this is why we’re artists. It’s why Kevin and I work here.”

“And from an institutional point of view, as a community provider of this art form, we have a responsibility,” Smith says.

“After 400 years, opera still is a vital art form,” Johnson says. “Look at Green Day’s American Idiot album or My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade. They’re both very operatic. Telling a big, epic story with music is an expression of our humanity.”

The Grapes of Wrath is that kind of “big, epic story.” It follows the Joad family who, in Depression-era America, is driven out of Oklahoma by poverty and the Dust Bowl and struggles to survive. How the opera came into existence is something of its own epic. Even acquiring the rights from the publisher to adapt the book took several years.