Revisiting La Fanciulla del West Met On Demand

[lennygoran]

Revisiting La Fanciulla del West Met On Demand



We hadn't seen this opera in some time when we saw it live-- watching it yesterday On Demand was very enjoyable-for us it really held up. The Met describes it this way:

Giancarlo Del Monaco’s atmospheric production brings to colorful life a 19th-century mining camp during the California Gold Rush. At the center of the action is the good-hearted bar owner Minnie, sung by Barbara Daniels, who takes a motherly interest in the miners. Plácido Domingo is Dick Johnson, also known as the bandit Ramerrez, who falls in love with Minnie. Sherrill Milnes sings Jack Rance, the sheriff who is not only determined to capture Ramerrez but also wants Minnie for himself. Bloodshed, a crooked poker game, a snowstorm, and a near lynching ensue before Minnie and her bandit-turned-lover can ride off to start a new life. Leonard Slatkin conducts one of Puccini’s most colorful scores.

Performance Date Apr 08, 1992

Run Time 2 HRS 18 MIN

Here's a NYTimes review when the new production was was debuted in 1991



Review/Opera; The Met Revives 'Fanciulla del West'

By Edward Rothstein

Oct. 12, 1991



Though the Metropolitan Opera presented the world premiere of "La Fanciulla del West" in 1910, the new production unveiled on Thursday night marked only the 65th performance of this work in the company's history, and the first since 1970. Puccini thought it "the best of my operas," adapting it from the play by David Belasco (who also provided the composer with Madama Butterfly & Company), but that turned out to be a minority opinion. The opera's lyricism was deliberately embedded in the midst of continuous development, not providing the framed melodic hits expected from Puccini. So "La Girl," as he called it, languished.

But as Thursday's performance showed, the work deserves a more favored place in the repertory. We may have to tolerate the notion of Wild West gold miners singing in Italian (except for a few choice words like "hello," "dooda, dooda day" and "whisky"), and we may have to resign ourselves to hearing American frontiersmen singing Puccini melodies redolent of Debussy and Strauss. We may even have to accept the notion that a poker game would be played for custody of a man bleeding profusely from a bullet wound. But the Met still made a strong case for treating this peculiar opera with respect and even admiration.

By the second act, the principals also seemed thoroughly convinced (and were expertly intent on convincing us), guided by Leonard Slatkin's sharp-edged and well-articulated conducting, which never slackened into sentimentality or simple exclamation. The production, by Giancarlo del Monaco, was designed to let the work speak for itself in a deliberately traditional and straightforward fashion. Until the third act, Puccini's instructions were generally taken into account and the atmosphere and character of California during the gold rush was respected.


The weakest part of "La Fanciulla" is the first act. Michael Scott's set is a barn-shaped version of the Polka Saloon constructed of dark, unpainted wood, housing a bar well stocked with whisky. It serves primarily as a grand-scaled gathering place for the locals, a parade of miscellaneous bit roles that provide a snapshot album of the Old West.

Here Kim Josephson as Jim Larkens ably sang his homesick ballad; a miner named Sid (played by Perry Ward in a late substitution) was accused of cheating at cards, and Terry Cook's Jake Wallace was a minstrel playing a prop banjo as accompaniment for his very un-banjolike aria. There was even a choreographed free-for-all in which one character crashed through the requisite balcony railing. By the time things quieted down, it was hard to focus attention too closely on Barbara Daniels's Minnie and the two rivals for her attentions, sung by Sherrill Milnes and Placido Domingo (who recorded the work for Deutsche Grammophon in 1978).

After the first intermission, however, the work began to cohere. The set's mountainous wilderness and mine entrance just outside Minnie's cabin even helped one accept the two live horses delivering the lead singers as just examples of simple realism. Miss Daniels had both spunk and irrepressible charm, her singing opening up lyrically on top. There was an occasional hardness to her tone, but this helped make her believable as a sort of tough, principled but vulnerable frontier type.

Mr. Milnes, as the slightly evil sheriff Jack Rance, was an imposing stage presence, his initial stolidity finally giving way to authoritative, fleshed-out singing, just occasionally pitched flat. And while Mr. Domingo had the habit of ending phrases with a cliched tenor's "catch" -- a sudden crescendo and puff of sound -- and while his voice seemed a bit pressed and thin in the only typically Puccini aria in the work, "Ch'ella mi creda" (a favorite of Italian troops during World War I), he was, overall, a strong-willed and appealing Dick Johnson, displaying both virility and taste.

The only problematic interpretation in this production was the creation of a ghost town as the eerie set of the final act; my guess is that ghost towns existed only after the gold rush, not at its peak. Moreover, Puccini explicitly requested the setting of a "great American forest": redwoods, perhaps, dwarfing the double-crossing sheriff and his lynch-mob posse. He, too, might have been surprised by the ghost town's impact. Finely detailed and well-executed, it created a sense of ruin and doom even when the lovers went off to eternal happiness.

But in ghost towns, as in forests, civilized life is left behind and frontier justice reigns. So even the sheriff felt free to welch on his word. Johnson was brought in like a broken steer, the noose being readied for his neck. Only the staging of Minnie's rescue broke the spell; suddenly she appeared on a balcony ready to stop the proceedings, holding a lynch mob at bay with her rifle, inexplicably ignoring the two men standing right behind her.

But none of the production's occasional misjudgments affected the pleasantly casual impact this opera can have on a listener. I almost came out humming -- nothing in particular, just lyrical Puccini patter. La Fanciulla del West

Opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, after the play by David Belasco; conductor, Leonard Slatkin; production by Giancarlo del Monaco; sets and costumes by Michael Scott; lighting by Gil Wechsler. At the Metropolitan Opera. Minnie . . . Barbara Daniels Dick Johnson . . . Placido Domingo Jack Rance . . . Sherrill Milnes Jake Wallace . . . Terry Cook Jim Larkens . . . Kim Josephson Sid . . . Perry Ward Nick . . . Anthony Laciura Wowkle . . . Sondra Kelly Ashby . . . Julien Robbins WITH: Charles Anthony, Michael Best, Bernard Fitch, Michael Forest, Vernon Hartman, Bruno Pola, Kevin Short, Hao Jiang Tian and Richard Vernon.

[Rach3]

Thanks for this. Brought back memories of enjoying a live performance at Santa
Fe Opera in Santa Fe ,ca.1994, sitting in the then roofless open air area of the opera house, in ponchos, an intermittent light rain on us, with a glass of cabernet in hand.Hope you kept dry, but with a glass in hand.

[lennygoran]

Brought back memories of enjoying a live performance at Santa
Fe Opera in Santa Fe ,ca.1994, sitting in the then roofless open air area of the opera house, in ponchos, an intermittent light rain on us, with a glass of cabernet in hand.Hope you kept dry, but with a glass in hand.

Steve we only went to Santa Opera one time many years ago-it got cold in the evening and we had forgotten to bring wine. Regards, Len

[maestrob]

Len, I have this one on video. It's a fine performance for sure. Thanks for the memories!