Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up is one of the most successful and striking of a new generation of American operas. It is a chamber score, set in the Western states of the 1860s. It touches upon primal American dreams and anxieties, from the collective ambition of Manifest Destiny to private fears of family life, social status and day-to-day survival in a harsh and unforgiving landscape. It premiered in Washington DC (and sounds much more effective in this excellent recording than I remember from its first outing, which I saw in 2018), and has been staged at Opera Omaha (a production that forms the basis of this recording) and in New York City at the Miller Theatre.

American opera is in a sustained period of ‘prima le parole’, focused less on pushing musical boundaries and more on creating effective theatre, with clear text-setting and themes that resonant with contemporary audiences. That has led to more than a few stolid, earnest and musically inert works, in which the orchestra functions like a dithering continuo ensemble adding commentary to anodyne and well-intentioned political theatre. Mazzoli’s work rises far above that, with a surreal and sometimes gothic storyline (fashioned by librettist Royce Vavrek after a short story by Karen Russell) that opens up musical possibilities. Among them is a haunting prologue sung by the father figure, dubbed here ‘Pa’, and sung with great force and vocal warmth by baritone John Moore.

Pa’s prologue sets the stage: ‘Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm’, he sings, a reference to the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave land to settlers willing to work it and improve it – hence the opera’s title. Through those efforts they would eventually receive title to it, and the desperate need to be favourably appraised by the government inspector is the core tension of the work. Although the opera dates from 2018 and the short story that inspired it from 2013, the subject matter flays the myth off the bones of an American narrative that is now at the core of the country’s moral awakening. This land was never empty, and its reapportionment to a mostly white, European-derived settler class is among the essential and original sins of American identity.

Mazzoli’s score is rich in percussion, touches on folk fiddle tunes and includes a small complement of winds and a trumpet, along with piano, harpsichord and harp. But the dominant texture is one of smooth, sustained, tremulous sounds, which underscore the eeriness of a story that includes the ghosts of dead children and a mysterious figure, called the Sodbuster, who functions as a figure of both death and judgement. Christopher Rountree conducts the International Contemporary Ensemble and a cast that includes a harrowing performance by tenor Michael Slattery as the young son of a troubled pioneer family, Andrew Harris as the Sodbuster and Talise Trevigne as the mother of the doomed clan.

In 2018 the Metropolitan Opera announced that it had commissioned a new mainstage opera from Mazzoli. This score, and this fine recording, should whet appetites more broadly for that debut, which is highly anticipated by those who already know her work.