Opera Montana Announces World Premiere of “A River Runs Through It”

Michael Kuhn and Schyler Vargas will play Paul and Norman Maclean in the premiere of A River Runs Through It, a commissioned opera for Opera Montana. Photo courtesy of Opera Montana

With music by award-winning composer Zach Redler and a libretto by Matt Foss and Kelley Rourke, the 90-minute opera transforms Maclean’s semi-autobiographical meditation on family, faith, and fly fishing into what the creative team describes as a work designed to be accessible to audiences who may never have experienced opera before.

“A River Runs Through It is a Montana story, but it’s also a universal one, and I can’t think of a more fitting inspiration for Opera Montana’s first commissioned opera,” said General Director Susan Miller in the company’s official announcement. “On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its publication, there couldn’t be a better time to bring it to the stage.”

A Family’s Blessing

The production has received the endorsement of the Maclean family. John N. Maclean, the author’s son and himself an acclaimed author of Home Waters and Fire on the Mountain, acknowledged the challenge of adapting a beloved literary classic while expressing confidence in the project’s fresh approach.

“The reward is a fresh perspective from a talented cast and writers who explore themes of love, loss—and fly fishing, of course—to bring the familiar characters to new life,” Maclean said. “My father would have been delighted to see his story on stage and his words, often only a heartbeat away from poetry, turned to song.”

The opera was commissioned with the kind permission of The University of Chicago Press, Jean Maclean Snyder, and John N. Maclean, and received funding from OPERA America’s Opera Fund, part of a North American effort to enhance the quality and creativity of new opera and music theater.

From Page to Stage

Norman Maclean’s novella, first published in May 1976, was the first work of fiction ever released by the University of Chicago Press. Written when Maclean was 74 years old, the story follows brothers Norman and Paul Maclean in early 20th-century Montana, where their Presbyterian minister father taught them that “there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.” The book was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1977, though the committee ultimately declined to award the prize in fiction that year. It has since sold over a million copies and is considered one of the definitive American stories of the twentieth century.

The 1992 Robert Redford film adaptation, starring Brad Pitt, Craig Sheffer, and Tom Skerritt, introduced millions more to Maclean’s lyrical prose and Montana’s breathtaking landscapes. The film earned an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and transformed fly fishing’s cultural profile.

“For me, at its core, A River Runs Through It is an opera about family, faith, and the beauty we all share.”
— Composer Zach Redler

A Distinctly American Sound

Composer Zach Redler, recipient of the American Theatre Wing’s Jonathan Larson Award and the American Prize for Opera Composition, has created a score that deliberately bridges classical opera and American musical traditions. In an interview with KBZK, Redler described the musical influences shaping the production.

“The music is composed with the intention of being incredibly accessible for a variety of audiences. Bluegrass, country, jazz, honky-tonk, Copeland, Maslanka, and others served as inspiration to create both the breadth and romantic nature of the Montana land- and river-scape as well as the intimacy of a marital feud and the boisterousness of a tin-roofed backwoods bar.”

Redler told the Daily Montanan that the production includes “a straight-up country tune in the middle of this, which is just great,” underscoring the creative team’s commitment to honoring Montana’s cultural identity while meeting audiences where they are.

Expanding the Story’s Scope

Artistic Director Michael Sakir noted that the librettists took creative license to give more dimension to certain characters while preserving the novella’s essential themes. “The core of the story is still there—the focus on family and faith and fly fishing—but they’ve given more agency, for example, to the female characters,” Sakir explained.

Co-librettist Matt Foss, who also serves as stage director, emphasized the story’s universal resonance despite its specific Montana setting: “You don’t have to spend any time standing up to your waist in a frigid river to recognize the rhythms of this story. It is the specific that invites us into shared, more universal experiences of family and love and trying to help those we are closest to—especially when we don’t know how or what to do.”

Co-librettist Kelley Rourke, recipient of OPERA America’s 2024 Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, reflected on the adaptation process: “It is hard to imagine a better starting point for an opera than A River Runs Through It, a complex meditation on love and all the other feelings that flow from it—frustration, joy, and grief, to name but a few.”

The Cast

The production features a cast of seven principal singers drawn from Broadway stages and the Metropolitan Opera, accompanied by a 24-piece instrumental ensemble. Sakir described the casting process as “an embarrassment of riches,” with enough exceptional auditions to cast the show “six times over.”

• Baritone Schyler Vargas as Norman Maclean, the recently married eldest brother
• Tenor Michael Kuhn as Paul Maclean, the youngest brother—newspaperman, gambler, and an artist with a fly rod
• Soprano Christine Taylor Price as Jessie, Norman’s fierce, funny, loving wife
• Tenor Ryan Bryce Johnson as Neal, Jessie’s troubled brother
• Mezzo-soprano Megan Marino as Heidi (“Rawhide”), a local woman who fancies Neal
• Mezzo-soprano Phyllis Pancella as Clara, Norman and Paul’s mother
• Bass-baritone David Pittsinger as John, Norman and Paul’s father, a Presbyterian minister

The entire cast traveled to Montana for an immersive preparation that included a guided fly fishing trip—a fitting homage to the art form that serves as the novella’s central metaphor.

A Cultural Moment for Montana—and Beyond

For the fly fishing community, the opera represents an extraordinary cultural milestone: the sport’s most sacred literary text reinterpreted through the emotional intensity of opera. But Miller and the creative team are quick to emphasize that no fishing knowledge—or opera experience—is required.

“There are no rules about going to the opera. You don’t have to dress up but you can dress up if you want to,” Miller said. “We try to make it an incredibly welcoming space. And this particular production will be for all ages.”

The May preview at National Sawdust in Brooklyn will bridge Montana’s trout waters with the New York arts scene, featuring John Maclean reading passages from his father’s novella alongside corresponding musical selections from the opera—a collaboration between National Sawdust, Seagle Festival, and Opera Montana.

Fifty years after Norman Maclean published his debut at age 74, becoming an unlikely literary sensation, his words are finding new life in an art form built, as librettist Kelley Rourke notes, “on big emotions—feelings so intense and complicated that words alone are not enough.” For those who have long been haunted by Maclean’s waters, this September offers a chance to hear them sing.