Cold Mountain
Composer
Jennifer Higdon
Premiere
Santa Fe OPERA • 2015
Commissioned by
Santa Fe Opera
Opera Philadelphia
Minnesota Opera
Cold Mountain, set during the American Civil War — the pivotal conflict in our nation's history — is the story of a soldier who wonders whether the violence he has endured has in some way ruined him and made him unworthy of love. In the struggle to answer this question, Inman is forced to examine where his real allegiance lies. Is it to his country? Is it to a cause? What is at the center of his soul? What are the core principles that he needs to abide by to feel essentially human again? Cold Mountain, like The Odyssey, on which the novel is loosely based, has at its center a transformative journey.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Cold Mountain could very well turn out to be Scheer’s masterpiece. He painted the story of the ruined remains of a lost cause with a series of one-on-one confrontations. Cold Mountain is an astonishing triumph, destined to enter the operatic canon.”
Photos by Kelly & Massa (Opera Philadelphia), Ken Howard (Santa Fe Opera)
Previous Performances
Santa Fe Opera, 2015
Opera Philadelphia, 2016
North Carolina Opera 2017
Minnesota Opera, 2018
Critical ACCLAIM
— Denver Post
Santa Fe Opera • 2015
“A few notes in, it was clear the pressure brought out the best in everyone. Cold Mountain, the opera, turns out to be a special piece of American art that examines both our fortitude and failures. It is challenging to hear and true to its source material. That’s a particular compliment considering it took endless compromises on the part of librettist Gene Scheer to condense a 356-page Civil War epic into a two-act opera that’s less than three hours long. Frazier’s 1997 novel sprawls across time and geography, and only so much of that fits on a stage. This piece isn’t so much beautiful as it is real. That gives Scheer a big spotlight. Words matter in Cold Mountain and he is alternately sparse and poetic, and always on point as his characters suffer greatly from their lost conflict and evolve as humans. The real reward comes from experiencing the palpable pain the characters sustain to tell a compelling story and take us to the reaches of human endurance. This is opera; happy endings are not the point.”
— Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Santa Fe Opera • 2015
“One of the reasons for Higdon’s musical success here is the carefully constructed libretto by Scheer, whose list of successes is extensive, including another libretto derived from a novel, Moby-Dick. Cold Mountain could very well turn out to be his masterpiece. The Civil War may be the backdrop of the action, but Scheer painted the story of the ruined remains of a lost cause with a series of one-on-one confrontations. In this critic’s mind, Cold Mountain is an astonishing triumph, destined to enter the operatic canon of frequently performed works and proving that the years of effort, rearranged schedules and sacrifice by all involved have paid off.”
“The premiere of Cold Mountain, an opera by composer Jennifer Higdon and librettist Gene Scheer, was unveiled at The Santa Fe Opera Saturday night in a production that built cumulative power through the course of two fully filled acts and ended up touching hearts just like an opera should. In the novel, these yield a series of episodes that are mostly self-contained, and it required some creativity to mold the material into a libretto that is not just a parade of disparate vignettes. Hats off to Scheer for accomplishing that with a sensitivity that both honors the source and renders it suitable to its new medium. He does this through frequent flashbacks and cross-cutting, never letting the main dramatic question — will Inman and Ada reunite? — get forgotten as Inman makes his way through his trials, miraculously surviving them through his wiles and his inherent nobility of spirit.”
— Santa Fe New Mexican
Santa Fe Opera • 2015
— The Classical Review
Santa Fe Opera • 2015
“Rarely has a new work had so many good things going for it: a beautiful story with exceptionally well-defined characters and drama; a librettist, Gene Scheer, with experience in bringing impossible-to-adapt books to the operatic stage. As with Moby-Dick, Scheer had to strip away most of the substance of the novel to yield a libretto that would make a normal-sized opera. He uses many narrative overlaps to weave the parallel stories of Inman and Ada together, in more than one case with other characters and scenes in complex ensembles.”
— Boston Musical Intelligencer
Santa Fe Opera • 2015
“Cold Mountain makes a powerful statement about the human spirit and the cost of war. It was moving, evocative – and essential: in its insights on a central, grim chapter of US history, and in bringing its story to life through music layered with great depth of meaning, which the entire production also works to bring across. Librettist Scheer reveals himself as a superb poet in compacting Charles Fraser’s sprawling epic for the stage. Not a single line falls flat…”
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Santa Fe Opera • 2015
“The biggest news at Santa Fe Opera this summer is the world premiere production of Cold Mountain. With a libretto by Gene Scheer after Charles Frazier’s award-winning 1997 novel, it successfully distills the story’s essence and sets it to music that is timelessly American, with a modern sensibility and without Coplandesque tropes. It’s been such a hit in Santa Fe that a sixth performance was added. “Cold Mountain” is a powerful evening in the theater, a compelling statement on the evils of war that holds its audience while making them think.”
Feature Coverage
“It's a story that could have been taken from a breaking news report: A soldier, gravely wounded in a brutal battle, flees the fighting to try and make his way home. Only this story is set during the Civil War. If that's starting to sound a little familiar, it probably should — it's the story of Cold Mountain, a best-selling novel and a star-studded 2003 movie. Now it's an opera, composed by Jennifer Higdon with a libretto by Gene Scheer. It premiered this past weekend, but its road to the stage was almost as difficult as the journey home of the main character.”