La Fanciulla del West

New production Puccini’s opera of the American West, set during the California Gold Rush, was a great success at its premiere at the New York Met in December 1910, starring Caruso and Emmy Destinn, and conducted by Toscanini. Puccini’s peerless melodic gift and capacity for creating local colour was well-suited to this tale of a love triangle involving Dick Johnson, aka the bandit Ramerrez, Sheriff Jack Rance and Minnie, the Girl of the Golden West who runs the Polka saloon. Based, like its predecessor Madama Butterfly, on a play by David Belasco, The Girl of the Golden West is a story of true love and second chances, set against the backdrop of the tough life of a gold-mining community on the American frontier. The opera boasts perhaps Puccini’s most innovative score, and surely his richest orchestrally. In Opera North’s first production of the work in three decades, Alwyn Mellor returns to the Company as Minnie, one of Puccini’s most demanding soprano roles. Music Director Richard Farnes conducts, and Aletta Collins, whose productions of La voix humaine and Dido and Aeneas were among last season’s highlights, directs. Sung in Italian with English titles.