La fanciulla del West
Opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini
after David Belasco’s eponymous stage play
In Italian with German and English surtitles. Duration 2 H. 45 Min. incl. intermission after 1st act after approx. 1 H. Introduction 45 min before the performance.
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La fanciulla del West
Abstract
La fanciulla del West
Giacomo Puccini’s opera, which premièred in 1910, is frequently staged as a western with a saloon and smoking revolvers. However, in his Zurich production, director Barrie Kosky tells the story of the barkeeper Minnie, who lives alone among men in a gold-diggers’’ camp in the Wild West, as a thriller featuring desolate, lonely people fighting desperately to make their living and for redemption through love “in the last bar, in the very last village, at the godforsaken end of the world.” Kosky has been inspired by the stylistic devices of great American cinema, which Puccini anticipated in his score with film-like suspense and compositional realism. The squalid world of a filthy bar, Minnie’s hut, a poky, miserable little room, and a ruined house full of mud in the gangster-chase finale provide him with the external setting for a production full of tension: Kosky brings an enthralling Puccini crime thriller featuring both love interest and action scenes to the stage. As at the première, the charismatic Catherine Naglestad as Minnie and the strong character actor Scott Hendricks as the rough-and-ready Sheriff Rance make for a theatrically highly effective pair of antagonists. Brandon Jovanovich – already well known in Zurich as Sergej, Florestan or Drum major – will be débuting in the starring tenor role of Dick Johnson.
