Puccini La Fanciulla del West MELODY MOORE · MARIUS VLAD · LESTER LYNCH TRANSYLVANIA STATE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA & CHOIR LAWRENCE FOSTER Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) La Fanciulla del West (1910) Opera in three acts Libretto by Guelfo Civinici & Carlo Zangarini Based on the play “The Girl from the Golden West” by David Belasco CD 1 Act 1 1 Introduction 1.11 2 Hello, Nick! 5.50 3 Che faranno i vecchi miei 4. 00 4 Jim, perchè piangi? 3. 14 5 Andiam, ragazzi 1.19 6 Un poker! Nick, gettoni! 1.52 7 Mistress Rance, fra poco 1. 18 8 Hello, Minnie! 3. 24 9 Dove eravamo? 3. 34 10 La posta! La posta! 3. 09 11 Ti voglio bene, Minnie 1. 52 12 Minnie, dalla mia casa son partito 2. 23 13 Laggiù nel Soledad 2. 33 14 Chi c’è per farmi i ricci? 1. 51 15 Vi ricordate di me? 1. 39 16 Mister Johnson, voi m’avete seccato! 1. 31 Act 3 17 Mister Johnson, un valzer? 5. 24 18 Mister Johnson, siete rimasto indietro 3. 47 13 Ve lo guiro, sceriffo 1. 55 19 Io non son che una povera fanciulla 1. 17 14 Maledetto cane! 2. 04 20 Quello che tacete 1. 03 15 Ah! Ah! Ah! 5. 04 21 Come voi leggermi in cor non so 2. 39 16 Sceriffo Rance! 0. 26 22 Ah, non temete, nessuno ardirà! 5. 19 17 E così, Mister Johnson, come va? 2. 12 18 Risparmiate lo scherno 2. 11 Total playing time: 60. 19 19 Ch’ella mi creda libero e lontano 2. 47 20 Ah! È Minnie 2. 08 CD 2 21 Basta! 2. 04 Act 2 22 E anche tu lo vorrai 3. 20 23 Le tue parole sono di Dio 2. 37 1 Il mio bimbo è grande e piccino 2. 24 2 Billy, è fissato? 2. 04 Total playing time: 72. 29 3 Voglio vestirmi tutta 3. 56 4 Oh, se sapeste 5. 03 5 Ugh! Neve! 8. 12 6 Hello! 4. 59 7 Vieni fuori! 1. 23 8 Lo so, lo so! Ma non vi avrei rubato! 3. 35 9 L’han ferito. Che importa? 2. 32 10 Che c’è di nuovo, Jack? 3. 28 11 E là! E là! 2. 09 12 Una partita a poker! 5. 44 Minnie Melody Moore, Soprano Jack Rance, Sheriff Lester Lynch, Baritone Dick Johnson (Ramerrez) Marius Vlad, Tenor Nick, Bartender at the Polka Saloon Amitai Pati, Tenor Ashby, Wells Fargo Agent Martin-Jan Nijhof, Bass Sonora, Miner Kevin Short, Bass-baritone Trin, Miner & Un postiglione (The Pony Express Rider) Radu Cîmpan, Tenor Sid, Miner Alexandru Suciu, Baritone Bello, Miner Ruben Ciungan, Baritone Harry, Miner Alessandro Luciano, Tenor Joe, Miner Lorant Barta, Tenor Happy, Miner Rareș Munteanu, Baritone Larkens, Miner Antonio Di Matteo, Bass Billy Jackrabbit, a Red Indian & José Castro, a Member of Ramerrez’ Band Alexander Köpeczi, Bass Wowkle, Billy’s Squaw Ilseyar Khayrullova, Mezzo-soprano Jack Wallace, a Traveling Camp Minstrel Gustavo Castillo, Baritone Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, Cluj-Napoca Concertmaster: Paul Sîrbu Chorus Master: Cornel Groza Assistant Conductor: Néstor Bayona Conducted by Lawrence Foster Lawrence Foster © Marc Ginot7 La Fanciulla del West; This is Giacomo Puccini’s La Fanciulla del appealing and was impressed by the poets Carlo Zangarini and Guelfo Civinini. a pioneering work West, the work that marked the beginning breath-taking scenic effects Belasco had Neither had ever written a libretto before. of a bold new phase in his career. No created. These began before the curtain Progress on the project was slow and as The year is around 1850. The American longer willing to write the type of opera rose with a rolling cinematic projection of time went by Puccini began to accuse his gold rush is at its height and has brought that had brought him fame and fortune the Californian landscape and continued librettists of being lazy and incompetent. mass migration to the West, creating around the turn of the twentieth century, with a blizzard at Minnie’s cabin, created He was also distracted from the project deep divisions between the Spanish- Puccini had long sought an unusual by 32 stage-hands operating wind and by an extremely unpleasant episode in his speaking Californian population, the native dramatic subject that would stimulate a snow machines. Puccini was sufficiently personal life: his jealous wife Elvira falsely Americans and the new U.S. settlers. We change of creative direction. The fiasco interested in Belasco’s play to request accused a young maid in the Puccini are in a mining camp at the foot of the surrounding the first version of Madama an English friend, Sybil Seligman, to send household of having an affair with her Cloudy Mountains, a distant and isolated Butterfly, which had been booed off the a translation to him in Tuscany. He also husband, harassing her to the point where outpost of civilisation. Minnie, owner of stage of La Scala in 1904, led to a long sought out samples of American music, the young girl committed suicide. the Polka Saloon, is courted both by the period of hand-wringing, during which he including a book of native American songs. Sheriff, Jack Rance, and by a handsome considered and rejected numerous famous On the basis of this research, Puccini Eventually, however, the opera was newcomer called Dick Johnson, who is literary sources. decided that The Girl of the Golden West completed and received its première at later revealed to be the bandit Ramerrez. would indeed make a good subject for his the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 Though disappointed by Johnson’s Puccini saw David Belasco’s play The Girl next opera, and the crafting of the libretto December 1910. The work was different from deception, Minnie shelters him in her of the Golden West on a trip to New York commenced. anything Puccini had written previously, cabin when he is shot and plays a game of in 1907, when he was supervising the first either in terms of its musical language or poker with Rance for life-or-death stakes. American performances of Manon Lescaut For La bohème, Tosca and Madama its subject matter. In La Fanciulla del West When Johnson is later captured and faces and Madama Butterfly. Puccini could Butterfly Puccini had worked with two Puccini used a range of strikingly ‘modern’ the prospect of being hanged, Minnie discern little in the way of a clear narrative regular librettists, Giuseppe Giacosa and techniques – whole-tone chord progressions, intervenes, persuades the miners to show thread, though the fact that he spoke Luigi Illica. But Giacosa had recently died, unresolved dissonances, and angular clemency and rides off with him into the very little English probably didn’t help. and Illica was otherwise occupied, so rhythms – all of which created a rather sunset. However, he found the character Minnie Puccini found two new writers, the young brutal musical sound-world that matched 8 9 the harsh, masculine setting of the opera. Puccini travelled to New York for the effects. The opera’s theme of nostalgia, The music didn’t sound American either. The fast pace of the action meant that opera’s première by luxury liner, taking encapsulated by the chorus ‘Che faranno But then again, what did ‘American’ there was, for the most part, no place for his son Antonio with him and leaving i vecchi miei là lontano? (What will my old music sound like? Arguments about the the expansive moments of lyrical reflection the troublesome Elvira at home. It was folks do, way back home?)’, appealed in Americanness or otherwise of Puccini’s that were so characteristic of his earlier an all-star occasion, with Emmy Destinn particular to the many Italian immigrants score raged against the background of style. and Enrico Caruso in the leading roles who filled the cheaper seats in the a wider debate about whether American and Toscanini conducting. The streets gallery. But despite the warm audience high-art music should be based on the Puccini also used a larger orchestra than surrounding the Metropolitan Opera response, the New York critics were less music of the native Americans, or perhaps usual – including quadruple woodwind, two House were jammed with traffic, as all than enthusiastic the next morning. The on the music of African Americans. harps and an expanded percussion section fashionable New York tried to make its Met had hyped the work as ‘the perfect Meanwhile, Puccini protested that he had – and combined instruments in unusual way to the theatre, including members blend of two worlds’, and a ‘synergy of never intended to write an ‘American’ ways. A lot of the musical interest is in the of the Vanderbilt, Astor and Guggenheim old and new, European and American’. opera in the first place and that Fanciulla orchestra rather than in the vocal parts, families. The Met had never previously It is not surprising, therefore, that this was an Italian opera through and through. to the extent that the orchestra almost staged a world première, and this was New was the subject the reviewers picked up becomes a character itself, constantly York’s chance to put itself on the map as on to the greatest extent. Some deemed More concerning to him in the longer commenting on the events on stage rather a major operatic centre. The symbolism the opera’s cosmopolitan cast, including term was how critics saw this opera in than simply accompanying the voices. This of the occasion and the sums of money Italian, French, Polish and Spanish relation to his others. The critic for The was a technique Puccini had learnt from invested in it were such that the première singers, incapable of playing Americans Nation wrote: ‘In the whole opera there is Wagner, who pioneered a narrative use of could not afford to be anything less than a convincingly.