“Big Bonanza” opera captures storied era of Virginia City

RENO

A storied era of Nevada history is coming to life in theater and song with the world premiere of “The Big Bonanza,” an opera about the Comstock Lode and two of Virginia City’s most notable writers, Samuel Clemens and William Wright.

The opera, written by Jon Christensen and composed by Monica Houghton, is set in the 1800s in Virginia City, where riches were made and fortunes lost in the silver mines.

Clemens, who adopted the name Mark Twain, would go on to international fame. Wright, who wrote as Dan De Quille, struggled to find the same success. After the murder of a friend — town prostitute Julia Bulette — Wright slid into a state of alcohol and opium despair.

The opera is based partly on the writings of De Quille, who was commissioned by mining financiers to write an account of the Comstock Lode. His book, “The Big Bonanza,” was finished in 1876. Sales, however, were disappointing, though to this day it has seldom gone out of print.

Hopes. Dreams dashed. Rivalry. Jealousy. Regrets. Homesickness. Themes of life forever relevant. The Nevada Chamber Opera at the University of Nevada, Reno will tell the story at the world premiere of the two-act opera at Nightingale Concert Hall on campus April 8-10. An abridged preview was held Saturday in Virginia City at the historic Piper’s Opera House, a venue frequented back in the day by Clemens, Wright, mining barons and townsfolk alike.

A WHIMSICAL VENTURE

“It’s been quite a journey,” Houghton said of the long road to this month’s curtain raiser. “Pretty much the opera was an idea I had that led me to become a professional composer in order to write the opera.”

For Christensen, a former Nevadan and writer, the opera culminates a 15-year labor of his own love of history. His fondness of opera evolved with the work.

“I was never a big fan of opera,” said Christensen, a former journalist who wrote for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, New York Times and other publications when he lived in Nevada for 12 years.

But as a history buff, he was a huge fan of Clemens and Wright.

“I was fascinated by that history and learning more about it, I always kind of wondered if there was something from the spirit of the journalism of those times that I could bring into my own writing about the American West,” Christensen said.

“What surprised me was how much that history rhymed with what was happening around us as we worked on the opera,” he said.

Houghton, known to friends as Niki, talked about wanting to compose an opera. It was after the dot-com bust around the turn of the 21st century. Christensen shared the tales of Nevada’s Comstock.

They discussed comparisons of the then-and-now. Fate. Believing too much. Unyielding optimism that riches await in the next vein, the next stock tip.

“Niki asked if I’d be interested in writing the libretto. I was like, ‘What’s a libretto?’”

“I foolhardily said yes and here we are 15 years later,” said Christensen, now a historian at UCLA.

Composing an opera was a lifelong ambition for Houghton, who grew up in Reno and attended Harvard University, where she earned bachelor and master degrees in Chinese language and literature and East Asian studies.

She was always musically inclined.

“At that time I was just basically writing little piano pieces and songs. I didn’t really know that much about all the other instruments in the orchestra,” Houghton said.

“I just decided I had to go back to graduate school so I could learn to write for orchestra so I could write the opera.”

Houghton earned her master’s degree in music composition from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she also taught for a number of years.

Her composition for the opera won the Boston Metro Opera’s 2010 New Music New England Concert award.

NEVADA CHAMBER OPERA

The world premiere is a production of the Nevada Chamber Opera. The student group is under the direction of Dr. Albert Lee, himself an accomplished tenor who has performed with opera companies in the United States and abroad.

“‘The Big Bonanza’ represents Nevada Chamber Opera’s largest undertaking to date,” said Lee, who holds a master’s degree from the Juilliard School and doctorate in music from Florida State University.

“Our fully staged operas up until now have always been one-act operas about an hour in length. Additionally, this is the first time that the Nevada Chamber Opera is producing a world premiere,” he said.

The University Symphony Orchestra, directed by conductor Jason Altieri, provides accompaniment.

At a recent rehearsal in a studio classroom with the debut just days away, anticipation and nerves began to crescendo.

Lee, an animated man with sensory overdrive, coaxed, prodded and demanded more from his young performers. Snippets of verse were repeated, again and again, as his hearing searched for each individual note from the chorus of singers.

He critiqued their breathing, movements and mannerisms, urging them to let go and unleash the soul of the characters they portray.

“You have to give yourself permission to be an artist,” he told them.

The opera, having never been performed before, is a unique opportunity for students.

“Most of the repertoire that student musicians study is that of dead composers,” Lee said. “The intention of the composer is only gained through knowledge that is passed down.

“This is an opportunity to work directly with the composer to breathe life into the music on the printed page.”

Houghton is excited and anxious.

“I’ve never heard it on stage and haven’t heard it with a full orchestra,” she said. “What I’m really excited about is seeing if it really works. If it really hangs together. If people get it.”

Contact Sandra Chereb at schereb@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3821. Find @SandraChereb on Twitter.