More: Renowned singer Simon Estes announces his final opera performance and first in Iowa, in 'Porgy and Bess' I was so compelled by the storytelling and by Ginny.” "It was the fastest I’d read a book in a long time. “I remember starting the book and reading it in 24 hours," Quagliata said. Egel contacted Quagliata in late 2019 to take on the leading role.įollowing Quagliata's acceptance, Egel gifted her with a copy of the novel. In addition to serving as director, McIntyre took on the role of dramaturge early on, helping to adapt and assemble the show. "The plot is there, the characters are there, you need the singers and the music and it does - it lifts it up somehow." "I thought it would be great," said Smiley in a video conversation with McIntyre regarding the adaptation. McIntyre brought Smiley's text to the table when she heard the opera wanted to do something special for the anniversary celebration. But unlike the Bard's tale, Smiley's narrative doesn't focus on the youngest child, but the two older siblings, in particular, the eldest, Ginny, played by Elise Quagliata. Similar to the Shakespeare play that inspired it, the decision triggers a cavalcade of tragedy.
Smiley's original 1991 work is a female-focused retelling of Shakespeare's "King Lear." The novel tells the story of the Cook family, whose patriarch, Larry, decides to hand over his farm to his three daughters: Ginny, Rose and Caroline.
So "A Thousand Acres" became DMMO's first new, main-stage opera since 1986, when the company commissioned an adaptation of "The Tempest." “We knew that we wanted to write a new piece for the 50th anniversary," he said. “We wanted to pick a story that would be our story to tell, but would also have some recognizability to it." The new opera opened on July 9 and has one performance through July 22.ĭMMO decided to commission the novel in 2018 as it considered how to celebrate the opera company's 50 years, said Michael Egel, the general and artistic director at the opera. The show is in the middle of its debut run at Indianola's Blank Performing Arts Center as part of the Des Moines Metro Opera's 50th anniversary season.
McIntyre and her collaborators wanted to create a new opera, adapted from Jane Smiley's book, "A Thousand Acres." The results speak for themselves. As the show's director, Kristine McIntyre, observed, “It’s not every day a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist hands over her book to you and lets you do what you want with it."
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