An opera based on Willa Cather’s 1913 novel, “O Pioneers!” will take the stage in Cather’s childhood home town when the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Opera presents Tyler Goodrich White’s production of the same name.
A free matinee for local students will take place at the National Willa Cather Center’s Red Cloud Opera House Friday, Oct. 20, followed by an evening performance at 7 p.m. Tickets for the evening show are $20 in advance and $25 the day of the show.
Presented in connection with the 2023 Willa Cather Sesquicentennial, the production features student and alumni singers of UNL Opera, the UNL Chamber Singers, and a sextet of live musicians. Conducted by the composer, this production's stage direction is by William Shomos.
“O Pioneers!” is a sweeping novel of the Great Plains, with Nebraska farmers and homesteaders, and the Swedish American immigrants who came here. It is arguably the novel that made Willa Cather’s name and is based upon her experiences growing up in and around Red Cloud.
The novel’s strong and determined heroine, Alexandra Bergstrom, says at the end, “The land belongs to the future, Carl; that’s the way it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk’s plat will be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother’s children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it—for a little while.”
This performance will be enjoyed by all who love the land and the beautiful prairie country of the Great Plains and Nebraska, where the novel is set, organizers said.
The Red Cloud Opera House, built in 1885 and restored in 2003, is celebrating its 20th season of performances this year. Its historic stage is the place where Willa Cather was first introduced to a variety of travelling opera and theatrical productions in her childhood in the 1880s—and where she herself performed. It is the very wellspring from where the theatrical and musical experiences of her youth helped to shape her enduring love of music, theater, and opera—which she later reviewed as a journalist, and often peppered her fiction with musical works and references.