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A Thousand Variations Writers’ Workshop grad Jane Smiley’s 1992 Pulitzer-winning novel finds new life and new meaning set to music.
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BY ROB CLINE
hen an arts organization celebrates 50 years of sharing wonderful work with enraptured audiences, the time is right to do something exceptional. The question, of course, is what that something should be. For the Des Moines Metro Opera, the answer in part turned out to be adapting Iowa Writers’ Workshop alum Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Thousand Acres, for the stage. The novel is both a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear and a quintessentially Iowa story about an aging father attempting to entrust the future of the family farm to his three daughters. The initial seed of the project was planted by Kristine McIntyre, who is both director and dramaturg of the new opera that opens July 9 at the Blank Performing Arts Center in Indianola. “I first read A Thousand Acres back when it was published [in 1991], and it was a book that made a huge impression on me,” McIntyre said in a phone interview. “Flash forward many decades and [Des Moines Metro Opera General and Artistic Director] Michael Egel was looking for a book or something to turn into this world premiere to celebrate the 50th anniversary. This was three and half or four years ago now. Because I’m somebody who directs at the festival a lot and we’re friends, he asked me if I had any theories. And I said A Thousand Acres. I’m not the only person
Kyle Starcevich
who suggested the book to him, but I might have been the first person to suggest it, and I pushed it quite heavily.” Egel read the novel and agreed that it was an
excellent choice. With sign-on from the board of directors, which was eager to have McIntyre helm the project, work got underway. “Having me be both dramaturg and director
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