California history unfolds along with the making of an opera in Jon Else‘s entrancing documentary. Returning to the work of composer John Adams and librettist/director Peter Sellars, the subjects of his film Wonders Are Many, Else peeks behind the curtain as the pair prepare their collaboration Girls of the Golden West for its 2017 San Francisco Opera premiere. Ostensibly a look at the nuts-and-bolts of production from informal rehearsals to glittering opening night, the documentary also investigates the Gold Rush era that inspired the show. Soprano Julia Bullock is mesmerizing, as the opera’s star and the film’s narrator, employing passages from a real-life diary to make vivid the boom-and-bust of a rapacious time.
