Read Patty Nolan’s review of MOT’s The Tender Land, for Examiner.com
No 20th Century composer understood heartland America better than Aaron Copland. No composer championed the common man the way Copland did. The music for his opera “The Tender Land,” the current Michigan Opera Theatreproduction, echoes the thrum of the plow, the rustle of dry grain, the creak of aching bones and the trill of a meadowlark. Its tempo is paced to the setting sun and the pulse of hearts that yearn for something they cannot name.