5 Classical Music Albums You Can Listen to Right Now

‘Girls of the Golden West’

Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale; John Adams, conductor (Nonesuch)

You would be hard-pressed to find a fan of John Adams and Peter Sellars’s “Girls of the Golden West” when it premiered at San Francisco Opera in 2017. Critics, who found its libretto aimless and its three-hour score baggy at best, mostly dismissed it.

What a difference revision makes. There was always precious material waiting to be unearthed from this opera’s hulking body, and after two revisions, Adams has gotten it right. The running time is now just over two hours; the story, clearer; the music, so vivid you feel immersed among the evocations of pickax swings and dark folk songs that populate his treatment of California’s gold rush.

The redemption of “Girls” recalls another Adams-Sellars effort, “Doctor Atomic,” which premiered in 2005 but blossomed only when a recording was released in 2018. Two of that album’s singers appear here: the rich-voiced soprano Julia Bullock, and the frighteningly powerful bass-baritone Ryan McKinny. Joining them are “Girls” veterans (the bass-baritone Davóne Tines, the soprano Hye Jung Lee, the tenor Paul Appleby and the baritone Elliot Madore) as well as Daniela Mack, a newcomer who seems to have quickly settled into the score. The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s players behave like the Adams specialists they are.

If I could, I would send a copy of this recording to anyone who ever doubted the opera. JOSHUA BARONE

‘Messiaen’

Barbara Hannigan, soprano; Bertrand Chamayou, piano (Alpha)