In John Adams’ new Gold Rush opera, cultures clash with a tragic ending

For contemporary composer John Adams, it was three notes that launched his latest opera: the sound of a pick axe “chipping away at stone.” Premiering at the San Francisco Opera, "Girls of the Golden West," a collaboration with director Peter Sellars, is a story of high hopes and a shattered American dream set during the California Gold Rush of the 1850s. Jeffrey Brown reports.