Northwestern Now: Summaries
Aaron Copland works with Northwcestern students on the 1958 production of “The Tender Land”
• Moving story of martyrdom set during Reign of Terror opens Feb. 23• Mezzo-soprano Castle performs guest role for first time in Chicago• Aaron Copland’s Depression-era love story ‘The Tender Land’ to close season
EVANSTON – Aaron Copland’s Depression-era love story “The Tender Land” concludes the Northwestern University Opera Theater season at the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music.“The Tender Land,” the story of a young farm girl who falls in love with an itinerant worker, runs May 18 to 21 at Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson Street on the Evanston campus.Copland and NorthwesternFrom February 17 through March 2, 1958, composer Aaron Copland visited the Northwestern University School of Music. Over the course of his visit, School of Music ensembles performed his chamber music, band, brass, piano, and choral compositions, and Copland gave lectures on music and composing.A highlight of his visit was the February 28 performance of “The Tender Land,” conducted by Copland and staged in Cahn Auditorium. At that time, Copland’s first and only full-length opera was just four years past its premiere.Copland wrote “The Tender Land” with young singers in mind, with “material that would be natural for them to sing and perform.” It was as fitting a choice for its 1958 performance by the Northwestern University Opera Workshop as it is for Northwestern University Opera Theater today.Copland, who nurtured a lifelong passion for teaching, would certainly have been pleased to see that his opera’s legacy continues.Aaron Copland’s“The Tender Land”Thursday to Saturday, May 18 to 20, 7:30 p.m.Sunday, May 21, 3 p.m.Directed by Michael M. EhrmanConducted by Virginia Opera Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor Adam Turner, Copland’s opera is set in a rural Midwestern town in the 1930s. Laurie Moss is on the brink of graduating from high school when she …
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