From the Romantic East to the Wild West - where else would Puccini go, after M. Butterfly? And he made the leap via another play by the same (American) author David Belasco, set in an equally distant country and time.
It took 6 years for Puccini to get there, but the opera was commissioned by, and premiered (December 1910) at the New York Metropolitan Opera. This was the Met's first ever world premiere of an opera - La fanciulla del West. More about this extraordinary premiere here, from NYTimes. And a general introduction to the opera and its odd history here.
The Met's music director, Arturo Toscanini, conducted - and described the opera as a "great symphonic poem". Puccini himself said it was the greatest composition of his career. Read all about it in Wikipedia. But over a century later, Fanciulla has never made it to the top of the pop operas alongside Boheme and Butterfly and Tosca.
Like Butterfly, this new opera inevitably drew on stereotypes, but unlike its predecessor, it took a long time to win critical acclaim. Could it be because this heroine was not only a tough manager of men (as well as teaching Bible classes to them) but also seriously fit and gun-toting? Perhaps Puccini's fans needed the sweet sentimental and vulnerable heroine and her tragic conclusions - whereas Minnie survived triumphantly to a non-tragic ending? (Moreover, she rescued her tenor from a lynch mob, and rode off into the sunset with him. And her chosen love may have been Caruso, but was definitely a crook.)
Or was the hesitant reception because Fanciulla had few of the lyrical, hummable tunes the audiences expected from Puccini, and what's more, a score that was also had little that was American? It wasn't an immediate success, and had to wait till late 20th century to be widely recognised as a radical composition. 'Despite the plot being a source of significant criticism, the majority of published writers on Puccini and his music in the late 20th century and 21 century agree in calling La fanciulla del West Puccini's magnum opus, particularly lauding its craftsmanship.' More here. But even then, it never topped the popular operas whose lists were led by the earlier Puccini successes.
Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn, the top Met stars in 1910, sang the roles Puccini created for them - Dick Johnson and Minnie, the Girl. (Did you know Caruso was a brilliant caricaturist? Check out his images including of that first production in rehearsal here.) Destinn, - universally known as the 'divine Emmy' - performed in over eighty roles, specialising in Puccini - here's her 'One Fine Day', recorded in 1911, with wonderful images of the Czech diva and her costumes.
Over the century, a lineup of top sopranos have sung Minnie. Listen here to the famous production with Renata Tebaldi, in the card scene - Minnie bets a poker game for Dick's life with the Sherrif - and cheats and wins. Go to the end - 6.45 - to hear her victory scream: "tre assi e un paio" (3 aces and a pair)!
The Met staged a centennial performance in 2010, greeted by Anthony Tommassini of the NYTimes with a rave review. It was an old production, and as he noted, 'This opera is still too little known and misunderstood to warrant a reconsidered production by a director with a novel interpretive stance. In spirit, the Met’s current staging is close to the original and allows this remarkable score to come through beautifully.'
In the Met's revival, (right) Deborah Voigt clearly enjoyed the role of Minnie, the 'girl' of the title and highly competent owner of a bar in a Californian mining camp. A great review here. Marcello Giordani was a very unAmerican Dick Johnson, the bandit-turned-lover hunted by the cynical sheriff Jack Rance (Lucio Gallo), who wants Minnie for himself. Of course, he doesn't get her - this is Puccini in happy ending mode.
It's the score that counts. 'For generations “Fanciulla” has been patronized as an unlikely melodrama, a prototype for the spaghetti western films from Italy, a pulsing Puccini opera plopped into an implausible California setting where miners sing “doo-dah day” refrains when not spouting Italian.... the score emerged as arguably Puccini’s most subtly written and boldly modern music. In place of those typical Puccini melodic outbursts that grab you and won’t let go, this ingenious score folds refined lyrical strands into a nearly through-composed musical fabric.'
And it's the orchestra, not the soloists, that do it. 'When she falls for the intriguing stranger Dick Johnson, whom she has met before and thought about often, Minnie opens up poignantly, confessing that she is just a nobody, really, trying to do some good, while the orchestra swells with undercurrents as harmonically murky and plush-textured as anything in Debussy.'
That story
In Puccini terms, it's a complicated tale, and has some high drama moments.
and Libretto here.
Our production
We're watching a production by Wiener Staatsoper with Nina Stemme as Minnie and Jonas Kaufmann as Dick Johnson. Kaufmann has returned to the role since - he sang the lead with Eva Maria Westbroek in the 2022 production at the Met. Here's his entrance. And here's the final aria "Ch'ella mi creda libero e lontano" where he begs that Minnie will not know how he died.
Yes it's moved out of the Golden West - to a mining camp mid 20th century with a trailer park cafe, and a mobile home for Minnie. Lots of containers, and (against Puccini's specification that they ride off on horses), Minnie and Dick Johnson escape in a hot air balloon. But these stars shone.
'100 years have passed since the work debuted in Vienna, and 25 years since it was last seen here. This production has the ability to catapult Fanciulla into the list of Puccini favourites - and not just with the current cast. A gem to be treasured.' So wrote the Opera Critic. That was 2013.
The Classical Music site's review is here - with another suggestion about this opera's odd failure to make the top pops. "If La bohème is about young love, La fanciulla del West is about old love. Its heroine, Minnie Faulkner, has never been kissed yet she is clearly a grown woman, weary after years of running a bar in a mining camp in Gold Rush California, toting a gun, teaching Bible lessons and mothering the miners. When handsome Dick Johnson arrives at the Polka Saloon, Minnie is as skittish as a teenager, squeezing her tired feet into her best shoes. Johnson has secrets: his real name (Ramerrez), his criminal record, an uncertain relationship with Minnie’s nemesis, Nina Micheltorena, and, most importantly, his longing to start over in a life of ‘love and work’."
So audiences prefer young love, and particularly the doomed, sweet sad sort?
Lyn, 22/5/24
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