John Moore as Pa (whose heartiness devolves into a kind of heartlessness) and Talise Trevigne (who is heartbreaking in her grieved outpouring in Part 4) anchor the performance as the parents; and Michael Slattery gives Miles the right combination of misguided bravado and vulnerability. Christopher Rountree and his chamber orchestra play the music as if they’ve lived with it for years.

Mazzoli’s Proving Up is one of the most successful and striking of a new generation of American operas…her score is rich in percussion, touches on folk fiddle tunes and includes a small complement of winds and a trumpet, along with piano, harpsichord and harp. But the dominant texture is one of smooth, sustained, tremulous sounds, which underscore the eeriness of [the] story.

The opera’s idiom is perhaps best described as consisting of uncommon but exceedingly effective sonorities…Captivating and beautifully crafted, this is nonetheless some of the most ominous music I have heard in a long time...Andrew Harris brings the role [of the Sodbuster] compellingly to life, his powerful, menacing bass suggestive of a frighteningly evil presence...It’s an experience not to be missed.

An unsettling tale of Nebraskan settlers chasing the American Dream, Mazzoli’s taut one-act opera is as bleak as it is beautiful, its soundworld echoing the uncanny chill of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and the American pastoral of Copland’s The Tender Land; the writing for the symbiotic two young daughters of the struggling Zegner family (shades of the Nieces in Peter Grimes here) is especially memorable, and Michael Slattery is wonderfully wide-eyed and plangent in the pivotal role of their brother Miles.