Farm-Grown Opera

For its spring production, the opera department at Cal State Northridge is taking its first stab at the thoroughly American “The Tender Land” by Aaron Copland, which pits wanderlust against domesticity on a Kansas farm.

“One has a concept of opera, but here’s a farmer opera,” opera program director David Aks said. “There are no dukes or princes, just farmers. There’s a hoedown in the middle of the show.”

In the libretto, Laurie Moss is a 17-year-old farm girl who falls in love with a drifter.

“She sees this guy as her ticket out of there. She wants to leave the farm,” Aks said. “He sees her as his ticket to settle down. He’s been drifting all his life. So they come together, fall in love, and want to do the exact opposite things.”

Although the work was premiered by the New York City Opera in 1954, Copland intended it to be playable in student productions.

“He supposedly wrote it with college and university students in mind,” Aks said, “but it’s not easy at all for them. It has been quite a challenge, which the students have met wonderfully well.”

One might assume the decision to do Copland was tied to the composer’s centenary this year, but it stemmed from a more pragmatic concern.

“As so often happens when we’re choosing repertoire, we take a look at who we have and then try to find appropriate pieces,” Aks said. “This one just presented itself as we looked through a pile of scores. There are a couple of tunes from this opera that get done, like ‘Laurie’s Song,’ which just about every soprano sings. There’s also a choral section that gets done called ‘The Promise of Living,’ based on an old American song, that’s really a gorgeous section.”

For this production, David Scott, a retired CSUN professor who founded the opera program and led it for 30 years, was the stage director. The set design is by Owen Smith, a retiring faculty member who has worked on many operas at CSUN.

BE THERE

“The Tender Land,” will be performed Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Cal State Northridge Little Theater, 18111 Nordhoff St. Tickets $15 adults, $10 seniors, staff and students. Call (818) 677-2488.