Giants in the Earth is a Pullitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize for Music

The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year...

 winning opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 by composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 Douglas Moore. The work uses an English libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by Arnold Sundgaard after Ole Edvart Rølvaag

Ole Edvart Rølvaag

Ole Edvart Rølvaag was an American novelist and professor who became well known for his writings regarding the Norwegian American immigrant experience...

's novel of the same name. The work premiered on March 28, 1951 at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

's Brander Matthews Theatre. The premiere cast included soprano Brenda Miller Cooper

Brenda Miller Cooper

Brenda Miller Cooper was an American operatic soprano. She studied voice at Case Western Reserve University earning a bachelor's degree in music, after which she pursued graduate studies at the Juilliard School where she earned a Masters in vocal performance...

as the central figure Beret, along with Josh Wheeler, Roy Johnson, Vivian Bauer, Sam Bertsche, Helen Dautrich, James Cosenza, Frances Paige, Raymond Sharp, and Edward Black.