The HD Live from the Met series returns to the Salmar Classic on Saturday, Oct. 27 with La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West).
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was as popular as a rock star in his own lifetime, and his mature works remain staples in the operatic world, (La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, Tosca). His operas are celebrated for their mastery of detail, sensitivity to everyday subjects and abundant expressive melody.
The libretto for Fanciulla by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini is based on the play, The Girl of the Golden West, written and produced on Broadway by the American impresario David Belasco (1853 – 1931). Puccini was enchanted with Belasco’s fictional setting during the California Gold Rush, with its combination of mythic and grittily realistic elements. The score is marked by a preponderance of male voices, reflecting the title heroine’s isolation in an almost all-male world.
Related: Breaking into song at the library
Puccini’s “American” opera had its glamorous and highly publicized world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910 with the composer in the audience. The legendary Enrico Caruso sang the role of Dick Johnson. (a.k.a. the bandit “Ramerrez”). The famous tenor aria from act 3, “C’ella mi creda” is sung by Johnson before he is to be executed by a lynch mob of gold prospectors led by Sheriff Jack Rance. In the aria, Johnson asks them not to tell Minnie, whom he loves, that he has been killed. Instead, he asks them to “let her believe” (ch’ella mi creda”) that he is far away, on the road to redemption from his bandit past. It is said that during World War I, Italian soldiers sang this aria to maintain their spirits.
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‘The girl’ Minnie is one of Puccini’s most appealing heroines—a strong, smart independent woman who has fallen in love with Johnson and throughout the opera prevails and outmanoeuvres her male challengers. Finally, she saves her reformed bandit lover and together they ride happily away.
Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek sings Puccini’s gun-slinging heroine, with the heralded return of star tenor Jonas Kaufmann in the role of the outlaw. Baritone Željko Lučić is the vigilante sheriff Jack Rance, and Marco Armiliato conducts.
Kaufmann’s return to the Met will make this the hottest ticket in New York. Shuswap residents will enjoy this production in the comfort of the Salmar Classic.