The Tender Land

By Aaron Copland

COMING OF AGE

Considered one of Copland’s finest scores and his only full-length opera, the piece was inspired by James Agee and Walker Evans’ book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Set in the Depression-era Midwest, it tells the story of an isolated girl who, on the eve of high-school graduation, must decide how to live her life.

Commissioned by Rodgers and Hammerstein in the early ‘50s as part of a project to support American opera. Copland, celebrated for works like Appalachian Spring and Billy the Kid, was a natural fit for a story rooted in rural American life. The work premiered in 1954 at New York City Opera to lukewarm reception. Copland then substantially revised the work in 1955, tightening it from two acts into a more streamlined version.

Today, The Tender Land is regarded as an important American opera, admired for its lyrical, folk-inflected score.