Rural Art

The World So Wide; Dawn Upshaw, soprano

One of the biggest fans of CBS Sunday Morning lives in a little town in SD. My mother has taped the show for years because it airs during church. After Mom walks across the street to her home following the worship service, she prepares her lunch and sits down to watch the program. If I had the time to tape and watch TV programs, then I, too, would champion the show like she does. When I visit home, I generally do watch some of the CBS tapes that occupy a little stash in her entertainment center.

In 1993, CBS Sunday Morning came to Southwestern Minnesota to tape a segment of their program. They had heard about a University of Minnesota School of Music production of “The Tender Land”, an opera by Aaron Copland. The story takes place on a Midwest farm owned by Grandpa Moss in the 1930’s and centers around Laurie who graduates from high school soon. Copland wrote “The Tender Land” between 1952 and 1954 with the idea that NBC would broadcast a staging of this now rarely performed work. NBC didn’t air one and Copland wrote it off as a flop.

CBS Sunday Morning caught wind of this presentation, not because of its occasional stagings, but because the University of Minnesota had scheduled performances of this opera in seven rural Minnesota communities – on seven farms. On seven fully functioning farms, each of which held a farmhouse with a prominent front porch from which the cast could present the story. They asked that each community provide a chorus, a junior high age girl to fill the role of Beth, Laurie’s sister, and accommodations for twenty-eight people (opera singers, orchestra musicians, techs, directors,etc.). The flyers for the show instructed the audience to bring chairs or blankets to sit on and a picnic if they so choose.

The CBS segment aired many months afterward. Mom saved this one for me, knowing that I would thoroughly enjoy this story. And it HAS stuck with me for many years.

The score contains an aria sung by Laurie called – what else? – “Laurie’s Song”. I have heard it on recitals over the years and I have kept an eye out for a recording of it where I wouldn't have to purchase the whole opera.

Dawn Upshaw, in 1998, released an album of American operatic arias. It includes “Willow” from The Ballad of Baby Doe by Douglas Moore, “What A Movie” from Trouble In Tahiti by L. Bernstein, and “Ain’t It A Pretty Night” from Susannah by Carlisle Floyd along with “Laurie’s Song” from The Tender Land. Ms. Upshaw sings on the world’s finest stages and several of her CD’s have found a home on my iPod. She battled breast cancer in 2006, but since then she has received an excellent prognosis and has returned to performing.

I have tried over the years to ascertain which facet of these Tender Land farm performances intrigues me most. Although the Midwest farm slant makes it a little more personal, I think I like that a type of art and artistry is brought to a place where one wouldn’t expect to find it – and that it feels like it belongs there.

Credits: To CBS Sunday Morning, for not only providing a smart, cultural, weekly offering of the news and the arts and the way that they influence each other, but also for providing us with sometimes simple, sometimes spectacular moments of nature at the end of the broadcast, as if to say: You may think that we’ve focused for almost ninety minutes on important, deep-seated issues – but hold on, ‘cause you haven’t seen nothin’ yet.