The Faber Pocket Guide to Opera (50 page)

Recording

CD: Renata Scotto (Butterfly); John Barbirolli (cond.).
EMI 769654 2

La
Fanciulla
del
West
(
The
Girl
of
the
Golden
West
)

Three acts. First performed New York, 1910.

Libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini

Having abandoned ideas of using Marie Antoinette or the Hunchback of Notre Dame as a subject, Puccini returned to David Belasco, whose play had inspired
Madama
Butterfly,
for his next opera.
Fanciulla
was given its first performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
Despite its huge initial success and the superb score, its libretto has dated badly and today it is less frequently performed than it merits.

Plot

California, during the Gold Rush of the 1850s.
In the Polka Saloon, the formidable God-fearing Minnie presides over the
bar and teaches the miners to read and write.
It’s a struggle – when the men are not complaining of homesickness, they are gambling or brawling.
News comes of the whereabouts of the bandit known as Ramerrez.
The Sheriff, Jack Ranee, woos Minnie and is jealous of her attentions to the mysterious stranger Dick Johnson.
A member of Ramerrez’s gang is captured and offers to lead a posse to Ramerrez’s hideout: this is a ploy to empty the Polka Saloon and allow the bandits to raid the gold that is kept there.
Ramerrez is in fact Johnson, but he is so smitten with Minnie that he refuses to collaborate in the plan.

In her log-cabin, Minnie is visited by Johnson.
They declare their love for each other.
A sudden blizzard means that Johnson is obliged to stay the night.
When a posse led by Ranee demands admittance, Johnson hides.
Ranee enters, announcing that Johnson’s cover has been blown and he has now been identified as Ramerrez.
After they leave, Minnie berates Johnson for his deceit.
Johnson explains that when his bandit-father died six months ago, he was forced into banditry to feed his mother and brothers.
Now, however, he has fallen under Minnie’s spell and vowed to change his wicked ways.
Johnson leaves and is shot at by the posse.
Minnie decides to believe his protestations.
She conceals the wounded man in her loft and denies all knowledge of his whereabouts when Ranee returns.
He makes a pass at Minnie, which she rejects – and he then accuses her of being in love with Johnson.

Blood falls from the ceiling and Ranee uncovers Johnson’s hiding place.
Johnson collapses unconscious and Minnie boldly challenges Ranee to three hands of poker.
If she wins, Johnson’s life is in her hands; if he wins, both Minnie and Johnson are his.
Ranee can never resist a wager.
Each wins one hand, and then Minnie asks Ranee to get her a drink.
While he is thus distracted, she removes some cards hidden in her stocking and wins the third hand with three aces and a pair.
Ranee leaves the cabin and Minnie laughs hysterically at the success of her scheme.

Ranee cheats on his bargain and Johnson is captured.
A lynch-mob of miners prepare to hang him.
With the noose around his neck, Johnson pleads that Minnie should be told he has gone free.
At the last minute, Minnie appears on horseback.
She appeals to the miners to spare Johnson’s life: over hard times, she has given them so much, now she begs them to grant her this one wish.
The miners agree, and Minnie and Johnson leave California for a new life together.

What to listen for

Unlike other Puccini soprano roles which mostly lie in the middle of the voice, Minnie (like Turandot) is written for high and low extremes.
No singer has ever found it easy, and given that the role also lacks a show-stopping aria (the nearest it gets to one, ‘Laggiù nel Soledad’, contains a killer high C that has embarrassingly floored several great names), it is not surprising that the part is so difficult to cast.

The tenor has a much easier time – the role of Dick Johnson was written for Enrico Caruso, and ‘Ch’ella mi creda’, his brief, intensely melodic outpouring in Act III, is an obvious hit tune (according to Lord Harewood, it was very popular with the troops during the First World War).
Jack Ranee is written for the same sort of singer as Scarpia in
Tosca.

The score is rich and ambitious, with atmospheric and colourful orchestration.
‘Ch’ella mi creda’ aside, this is not an opera of extractable numbers (which may provide another reason why it has never won the popularity that is its due), but the scene of the card game between Ranee and Minnie is one of Puccini’s great theatrical
coups,
and the lavish, intoxicating duets for Minnie and Dick Johnson in Acts I and II show how vastly more subtle and varied a composer he had become since the crudity of
Tosca
a decade earlier.
Note the superb curtains to each act – the opera’s final moments provide the great original of the ‘riding off into the sunset’ cliché of so many western movies.

In performance

The tragedy of this marvellous opera is that its gunslinger action and bible-bashing heroine make it almost unstageable without some degree of ludicrousness or parody – and given the additional problem of finding a dramatic soprano who can impersonate Minnie convincingly, it is not surprising that
Fanciulla
is not often heard today.
Productions such as that by Robert Carsen in Antwerp actually incorporate elements of the cinematic western, using film clips and conventions in an artful manner.
Far better to spend a lot of money building a ‘real’ log-cabin on stage – as Piero Faggioni did for his fine production at Covent Garden – and try to take the melodrama at its face value.

Recording

CD: Placido Domingo (Dick Johnson); Zubin Mehta (cond.).
DG 419 640 2

Il
Trittico
(
The
Trilogy
)

Il
Tabarro
(
The
Cloak
), one act, libretto by Giuseppe

Adami;
Suor
Angelica
(
Sister
Angelica
), one act, libretto by Giovacchino Forzano;
Gianni
Schicchi,
one act, libretto by Giovacchino Forzano.

First performed New York, 1918

After
La
Fanciulla
del
West,
Puccini tried his hand at something in the Viennese style of
The
Merry
Widow,
with its blend of light comedy, gentle romance and sentimental melodies.
But
La
Rondine
(1912) was only moderately successful, and Puccini was drawn back to the school of violent and erotic French melodrama which had served him so well in
Tosca:
Il
Tabarro
is based on a stage hit of the time, Didier Gold’s
L’
Houppelande.

Later, at the prompting of the librettist, he decided to
frame it with a gentler, sentimental tragedy and a sharp comedy – the result being a brilliant exercise in the matching and contrasting of operatic mood, colour and idiom.
Suor
Angelica
is an original story;
Gianni
Schicchi
is developed from a passing reference to a man who cheated on a will in Canto 30 of Dante’s
Inferno.

Plot

Il
Tabarro

A barge moored on the banks of the Seine in Paris.
Giorgetta is the pretty young wife of Michele, its gruff, middle-aged owner.
She is infatuated with a young stevedore, Luigi, with whom she makes a secret night-time assignation.
Luigi will wait for her to give the signal of a lighted match before he approaches the barge.