ConcertPulse
La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the West)
Hamburgische Staatsoper, Großes Haus (Hamburg)
California in 1850: hundreds of thousands have fallen for the gold rush – and some of them also for the barkeeper Minnie, at whose saloon various fortune seekers meet every evening. Among them is Sheriff Jack Rance. Minnie, however, falls in love with the stranger Dick Johnson. It soon turns out that Johnson is a wanted robber: the sheriff wants to see him hang and have Minnie to himself. A round of poker is to decide about Dick’s life: is there yet another trump up Minnie’s sleeve? Puccini certainly held a trump with his Fanciulla, and even considered the piece his best: after world hits such as La Bohème and Madama Butterfly he had reinvented himself with this “spaghetti western”. In La Fanciulla del West, he combined ragtime rhythms, allusions to gospel singing and the music of the native Americans with Italian melodiousness, resulting in a lushly orchestrated broadband sound. This did not fail to affect the audience at the first performance at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1910. And yet, compared to Puccini’s major hits, the piece languished in the shadows for a long time – until the musical gold diggers set out to reclaim it… Director: Vincent Boussard Set Designer: Vincent Lemaire Costume Designer: Christian Lacroix Lighting Designer: Guido Levi Premiere: 01.02.2015