La fanciulla del West

The scene is California during the 1849 gold rush, where Minnie, almost the only woman in a town of miners and roughnecks, rules over the Polka Saloon with a firm hand and a generous spirit. Jack Rance, the Sheriff, is determined to win her heart, but Minnie has her own ideas about love and when the mysterious Dick Johnson arrives from Sacramento, she feels new and powerful emotions. Meanwhile Rance is on the trail of the bandit known as Ramerrez, whose true identity, when revealed, will leave Minnie with a life-or-death dilemma. Puccini’s opera La fanciulla del West, in other words, is a classic western. For Puccini, the California of the 49ers (the name given to those who flocked to join the gold rush) provided a setting every bit as exotic as Japan or China, and he responded with a sweeping, exuberantly colorful score that embraces everything from mountain storms to hints of ragtime. Adapted from The Girl of the Golden West by the American playwright David Belasco, it opened at the New York Metropolitan Opera in December 1910, with the superstar tenor Enrico Caruso as Johnson. Today, it’s probably the least familiar of Puccini’s mature operas—ideas about ‘American’ music have changed a lot since 1910. But with its free-spirited heroine, its gripping plot and its vividly painted setting it’s easy to hear why Puccini ranked it among his very finest achievements.