Organization

Des Moines Metro Opera

Singer

Elise Quagliata

Ginny

Sara Gartland

Rose

Grace Kahl

Caroline

Roger Honeywell

Larry

Keith Phares

John Moore

Jess

Wu Wei

Marv Carson

Stage director

Kristine McIntyre

Conductor

David Neely

Lighting designer

Kate Ashton

Costume designer

Valérie Bart

Set designer

Luke Cantarella

Project Design

Libretto

Mark Campbell

Kristopher Irmiter

Harold

Jonathan Patton

English

A Thousand Acres

Indianola

United States

A Thousand Acres Kuster

Public

Approved

Video by Estuary Motion StudiosFeaturing Elise Quagliata as "Ginny"Musical excerpt: "Here, Leaving" by Kristin KusterExcerpt from the libretto, A Thousand Ac...

Jane Smiley's A THOUSAND ACRES, a modern retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear set on a farm in Iowa in the late 1970s, was released on October 23, 1991, to wide acclaim, winning both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. We're honored to adapt this monumental literary work into an opera with music by Kristin Kuster and libretto by Mark Campbell, with the world premiere set for July 9, 2022. 

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the novel's publication, we traveled to Jane's home in northern California to hear her reflections on the novel all these years later and her thoughts on turning A THOUSAND ACRES into a new American opera.

On July 9, 2022, Des Moines Metro Opera will add a new American work to the operatic canon with its world premiere of A Thousand Acres with music by Kristin Kuster and libretto by Mark Campbell.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear set on a farm in Iowa in the late 1970s told from the point of view of Ginny, the oldest of three daughters. Larry Cook, a prominent farmer, announces at a family gathering that he has decided to divide his thousand acres between his three daughters. While Ginny and Rose acquiesce to their father's wishes, Caroline demurs and enrages her father. Ginny tries to hold the family together but Rose, recovering from cancer treatment and fearful for the fate of her two daughters, is unrepentant in her criticism both of Caroline's selfishness and Larry's bullying nature. As Larry descends into rage and dementia, all the buried family secrets are finally laid bare.

A Thousand Acres is a family drama writ large. It is a story with great scope and broad appeal with distinctive female characters that explores ideas of family conflict, patriarchy, legacy and the strength and fragility of the ties that bind us together, all told through the eyes of its central female protagonist.

A Thousand Acres by Kuster, From (2022/2022), Directed by Kristine McIntyre,, Conductor David Neely, Des Moines Metro Opera, Indianola, United States

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