LINCOLN, NEB. -- O Pioneers!, Willa Cather's epic novel of life on the Nebraska prairie one hundred years ago, will come to the Kimball Hall stage at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln this fall in the world premiere of a new opera by Tyler White, NU's Director of Orchestral Activities.
Commissioned by the NU School of Music, the production represents the first operatic treatment of a full-length Cather novel. O Pioneers! is uniquely suited among Cather's works for this distinction since it is not only one of Cather's best-loved works but also her first novel set in Nebraska and the first of her works to gain lasting fame.
O Pioneers! centers on the story of Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of Swedish immigrants struggling to farm the then-barren plains of southern Nebraska. Her belief in the power and beauty of her new country enables her to awaken the land's fruitfulness, but her success with the land may come at the cost of love and family. Crossing Alexandra's story is that of her younger brother, Emil, and his hopeless illicit love for the wife of a neighboring farmer. Overarching both stories is the brooding presence of the land itself and its wind-swept spaces
White's musical treatment of the story stresses both its lyricism and its drama. Working in an expansive neo-Romantic style, the composer freely intersperses passages of spoken dialogue and symphonic interludes with the familiar operatic forms of aria, ensemble, and recitative.
Tyler White has been interested in Cather's works since he, like Cather herself, moved to the Great Plains as a child. A native of Atlanta, Georgia,raised in Manhattan, Kansas, White was educated at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Cornell University. He has received commissions for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the St. Luke's Trio, and other ensembles, as well as numerous prizes and other awards. In 1997, his cello concerto "Threnos" became the first work by a Nebraskan to win the Omaha Symphony Guild International New Music Competition. As a composer, White has two symphonies, two concertos, and numerous smaller orchestral and chamber works to his credit; O Pioneers! is his first opera.
O Pioneers! will premiere November 12th (8 p.m.) and November 14th (3 p.m.) at Kimball Hall, 11th & "R" Streets. Reserved seats are $14 adults and $7 students and are available at the Lied Center Box Office, 12th & "R" Streets, or call 402.472.4747.
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