School of Music presents The Tender Land

The Tartan Online: Opera has traditionally been perceived as the land of fat ladies in Viking helmets, passionate love affairs, and duels to the death. It’s not a medium that often brings to mind farmers in the American Midwest during the ’30s. Last week, the Carnegie Mellon School of Music put on a production of Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land, an American opera about a Great Depression-era family, and its broken hopes and future dreams. The opera focuses on the conflict between Laurie Moss, a young woman who wants to see the world and be free of her overprotective family, and her mother and grandfather, who have provided for Laurie over the years and only wish to guarantee her a bright and successful future.