The letters, written between September 1852 and November 1853 while she was living in Quincy with her husband, have appeared multiple times in print in different editions.
Under the pen name Dame Shirley, Louise Clappe, wrote 23 letters to her sister Molly detailing life in a California mining town. Via The Legacy of Alex Haley Now and Forever After having her Bavarian rights annulled, she joined a performance tour, and landed in San Francisco in 1853 where her Spider Dance caused a sensation at the Victoria Theatre, attracting both moral outrage at her radical behavior, as well as showers of gold nuggets. Hailing from Ireland, Montez spent time in Spain learning to dance, which enabled her to travel the world. She also became the Countess of Landsfeld, when her lover, King Ludwig I of Bavaria gave her the title. "The true stories of the forty-niners are overwhelming in their heroism, passion and cruelty, telling tales of racial conflicts, colorful and humorous exploits, political strife and struggles to build anew a life and to decide what it would mean to be American." Some of these stories, told through songs such as "Spider Dance," and "Ven esta noche, amado querido," feature real-life people who stood out in California history:īorn Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, this dancer and actress changed her name to Lola Montez to assume a Spanish identity. "Dame Shirley," that described life at the mining camps from 1851 to 1852. Selllers also used The Shirley Letters as a point of reference-a collection of correspondence by Louise Clappe, a.k.a. Girls of the Golden West is set in the historic mining camps of Rich Bar and Downieville which swelled suddenly with thousands of people, eager for a new life during the mid-19th century.Director Peter Sellars drew inspiration from a vast number of Gold Rush sources such as the diaries of Chilean miners, poetry of Chinese and Argentinian settlers, songs of the period, and Frederick Douglass' speech, What to the slave is the fourth of July, Mark Twain's Roughing It. Yet another star of the show is the location itself. The cast goes on to include a barrage of chanteuses including J'Nai Bridges, Paul Appleby, Hye Jung Lee, Elliot Madore and dancer, Lorena Feijóo. The production marks the debuts of young, quickly rising opera stars, Julia Bullock, Davóne Tines, Ryan McKinny and conductor Grant Gershon, who had led numerous orchestras across the country from the Los Angeles Philharmonic to the National Symphony Orchestra.
The newest opera by composer John Adams, with libretto by director Peter Sellars, has been heralded as "the most eagerly-anticipated new opera of the season." The San Francisco Opera is bringing tales of 1850s California to audiences this month with Girls of the Golden West, premiering November 21. Take a step back in time to see what life during the Gold Rush was really like.
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