The Girl Of The West | Operas | Season And Tickets | Opera Carolina The Girl of the West A bona fide Western Sunday, April 23rd - 2:00 pm Thursday, April 27th - 7:30 pm Saturday, April 29th - 8:00 pm Buy Tickets The Girl of the West / La fanciulla del West Can opera – a centuries-old Italian art form be an effective medium for a Western – that quintessentially American and (relatively) new genre? Puccini thought so. Synopsis Can opera, an Italian art form dating back to the late 1500s, be an effective medium for a Western – that quintessentially American and (relatively) new genre? In the hands of Puccini, it can. In the vein of Gunsmoke, High Noon and literary bodice rippers with Fabio on the cover, comes The Girl of the West (La fanciulla del West) a hard-drinkin’, poker-playin’, bona fide Western … with an Italian operatic soundtrack. And, of course, the hero (or in this case, the heroine) rides off into the sunset.

Opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini Libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini Based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco.... Accessibility Options English Supertitles Provided During The Performance Act I Inside the Polka Saloon A group of miners enter the "Polka" saloon after a day work. One of the miners, Larkens, is homesick and the miners collect enough money for his fare home. A group playing cards discover that Sid is cheating and go after him. Sheriff Jack Rance stops the fight and pins two cards to Sid's jacket, as a sign of a cheater. Ashby, a Wells Fargo agent enters and announces that he and his posse have been tracking the bandit Ramirez and his gang. He tells the sheriff that he’s meeting with Ramirez’s jilted lover, Nina Micheltoreňa. “Hell hath no fury, and she’s ready to give him up.” Rance toasts Minnie, the Girl who owns the saloon, who he wants to be his wife. This makes Sonora jealous and the two men begin to fight.

Rance draws his revolver but at that moment, a shot rings out and Minnie stands next to the bar with a rifle in her hands. After calming things down, Minnie gives the miners their weekly reading lesson from the Bible. Rance tells Minnie that he loves her, but Minnie puts him off -- she is waiting for the right man. A stranger enters the saloon and orders a whisky. He introduces himself as Dick Johnson from Sacramento, whom Minnie had met earlier. He is, in fact, the outlaw Ramirez, and he has come to the Polka to steal the miner’s gold. He invites Minnie to dance with him and she accepts. Rance watches them, jealously. Ashby returns with Jose Castro, a captured Ramirez gang member. Unkown to Ashby, Castro’s capture is part of their plan to rob the Polka of the gold the miners keep hidden in the saloon’s barrels. When Castro sees his leader in the saloon, he agrees to lead Rance in a search for Ramirez. Before Castro leaves, he whispers to Ramirez that somebody will whistle to confirm that the place is clear, and he should confirm with his own whistle.

The group follows him in what turns out to be a wild goose chase. When the signal is given, Ramirez fails to reply, as his attentions are now only fixed on Minnie. Minnie shows him the keg of gold that she and the miners take turns guarding at night. He reassures her that the gold will be safe. Before he leaves the saloon, he promises to visit her at her cabin, telling her she has the face of an angel. Minnie begins to cry, and “Johnson” comforts her before he leaves. Act II Minnie's cabin, later that evening Wowkle, Minnie’s Native American servant and her lover Billy Jackrabbit are in the house with their baby as Minnie comes home from the Polka. “Johnson” arrives Minnie's and she tells him all about her life. They kiss and Minnie asks him to stay till morning. A posse looking for Ramirez approaches the house. “Johnson” hides. The posse reveals to Minnie that Johnson is the bandit Ramirez himself. When they leave, she orders Ramirez to leave, which he does. Minnie hears a gunshot and she knows he has been shot.

Ramirez staggers in and Minnie helps him by hiding him up in the loft. The Sherrif Rance enters the cabin looking for the bandit, and is about to give up searching when drops of blood fall on his hand. Rance forces Ramirez to climb down. Minnie desperately makes Rance an offer: if she beats him at poker, he must let Ramirez go free. If Rance wins, she will marry him. Hiding some cards in her stockings, Minnie cheats and wins. Rance honors the deal and Minnie throws herself on the unconscious Johnson on the floor. Act III In the Great Californian Forest at dawn Ramirez is again on the run from Ashby and the miners. Nick and Rance wonder what Minnie sees in him, when Ashby arrives in triumph: Ramirez has been captured. Rance and the miners all want him to be hanged. Ramirez accepts the sentence and only asks the miners not to tell Minnie about his capture and his fate. Minnie arrives, armed with a pistol, just before the execution and throws herself in front of Ramirez to protect him. She convinces the miners that they owe her too much to kill the man she loves, and asks them to free him.

One by one the miners yield. Rance is not happy but finally gives in. The miners say farewell to Minnie as she and Johnson leave California to start a new life together. POPOpera Facts Puccini took a page out of the great American Western playbook – but set his rough-and-tumble, gun-toting, whiskey-slinging story to an Italian operatic soundtrack. If you liked Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty in Gunsmoke, you’ll like The Girl of the West (La fanciulla del West). And here’s an interesting twist: This is a feminist Western. Puccini gave this story a heroine – a spirited saloon owner who saves the day and gets to ride off into the sunset with her card-playing cowboy. John Wayne showed us how the West was won. Puccini demonstrated how the West was sung. Meet the Composer GIACOMO PUCCINI (1856-1924) Giacomo Puccini was born in Tuscany, Italy in 1858 into a family of five generations of church organists, choirmasters and composers.

His father died when Giacomo was 5 years old, and he was sent to study with his uncle, who considered him a poor student. As a teenager, Puccini served as an organist at area churches and played piano at social events. In 1876, the 23-year-old walked 30 kilometers to attend a performance of Verdi’s Aïda. This event changed his life: He decided to make opera his life’s work. The greatest influence in Puccini’s life was his mother, who petitioned for and received a grant to send her son to the Milan Conservatory. While studying at the Conservatory, Puccini obtained a libretto from Ferdinando Fontana, and entered a competition for a one-act opera in 1882. Although he didn’t win, Le Villi was staged in 1884 and caught the attention of the head of G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers, who commissioned a second opera, Edgar, in 1889. Edgar failed, in part because Fontana’s libretto was poor.

When Puccini began his next opera, Manon Lescaut, he announced he would write his own libretto so that “no fool of a librettist” could spoil it. Five librettists were involved, due mainly to Puccini constantly changing his mind about the structure of the piece. It was almost by accident that the final two, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, came together to complete the opera. They remained with Puccini for his next three operas and probably his greatest successes: La Boheme, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. Puccini based his “Western opera” on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Fanciulla followed Butterfly, which was also based on a Belasco play. The opera is influenced by Debussy and Strauss, although it’s an original work and certainly can’t be called a copy of either. The opera had a successful premiere at the Met in 1910. In fact, the Met commissioned it. Puccini himself considered his Western opera one of his greatest works.

His other famed operas include Turandot (1926) – unfinished at the time of Puccini’s death and completed by Franco Alfano, one of his protégés. Puccini was a lifelong smoker, particularly of cigars, and in 1924 was diagnosed with throat cancer. He underwent surgery, which left him unable to speak. He died of a heart attack four days later. Meet the Cast Puccini mined a San Francisco writer’s story for his spaghetti-western opera ‘Girl of the Golden West’ – The Mercury News By Richard Scheinin | rscheinin@bayareanewsgroup.com | June 3, 2010 at 12:31 pm Famous opera tenors don’t often study up on tough guys like Clint Eastwood. Nor, as a rule, do opera singers get punched in rehearsal. But then again, how often does an opera resemble a spaghetti western? San Francisco Opera hopes the resemblance will be a drawing card for Giacomo Puccini’s “The Girl of the Golden West,” opening Wednesday at War Memorial Opera House and starring tenor Salvatore Licitra as Gold Rush-era bandit Dick Johnson. Licitra knows about tough guys.

Preparing for the role, he’s studied Eastwood and John Wayne, too. “But still I did not expect my colleague to punch me in the eye,” he says, describing a rehearsal for the 100-year-old Puccini epic, set in California Gold Country. “Sure, it was an accident — but right in the eye! And I said, ‘OK, I know this is a spaghetti western, but next time will you please pretend to punch me in the face?’ “ Long before “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” — the 1966 spaghetti western starring Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone — Puccini applied his operatic vision to the mining camps of the forty-niners. Though sung in Italian, the opera is filled with Wild West iconography: saloon brawls, gunfire and the hangman’s noose. It’s as if Puccini “knew in advance,” Licitra jokes, “about all those movies by Sergio Leone.” Actually, the composer based “La Fanciulla del West” — the Italian title of the opera — on a play by San Francisco native David Belasco, whose father was a California miner.

Also the author of “Madame Butterfly,” the stage play on which Puccini based his hit opera about a teenage geisha, Belasco enjoyed a long career in New York, where he was known as the “Bishop of Broadway” — and where “La Fanciulla” premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910. “The Girl of the Golden West” tells the story of Johnson (Placido Domingo sang the role in San Francisco Opera’s last production, back in 1979) and his rivalry with Sheriff Jack Rance (Italian baritone Roberto Frontali sings the role in the new production — and accidentally punched Licitra during rehearsal last week). They fight for the love of a good woman named Minnie, the pistol-packing owner of the Polka Saloon, a miners’ hangout. Deborah Voigt, the American superstar soprano, will be Minnie at War Memorial. Aiming for an expanded audience, San Francisco Opera general director David Gockley actually tried to lure Eastwood to direct the production: “I tried for a good two years,” Gockley says, “and I had an audience with him and left him with a lot of material.

And his interest was piqued, and I said, ‘So, whadaya think? Will you do this?’ And he said, ‘I’m cogitatin’.’ Well, evidently he cogitated himself into not doing it. He’s a busy boy in his own world.” The opera — Puccini called it his best, preferring it to “Butterfly,” “Tosca” and “La Boheme” — is about a time when California seemed to be “shining with gold and dripping with blood,” says Sonoma-based historian James J. Rawls. He points out that in 1845, three years before the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, the non-Indian population of California was 7,000. By 1850, it was up to 150,000 and climbing rapidly. The dark side of the boom was disappointment — few got rich, really — in a harsh and often violent setting: “Danger was in every corner,” says Licitra.

“It was normal to fight and normal even to kill.” The stage sets for the new production, built in Sicily and shipped to War Memorial, depict the claustrophobia of the California mines, the grandeur of the snow-covered Sierra and the warmth of the Polka Saloon, where every one of the miners seems to be in love with Minnie. They play poker. They brawl. They schmooze about Sacramento and Monterey and the local Wells Fargo agent, named Ashby. They sing “doo-da, doo-da day” — Puccini’s allusion to the tune “Camptown Races,” one of numerous American borrowings in the score. And they sing achingly of home and family: Some historians have linked the opera’s lush score to 20th-century film music and Broadway composers Richard Rodgers and Andrew Lloyd Webber. (Portions of Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” bore enough of a resemblance to themes of “La Fanciulla” to prompt a complaint from the Puccini estate.

The dispute was settled out of court.) The opera is about “nostalgia and longing, dreams and desires,” says Lorenzo Mariani, the new production’s stage director, whose own father emigrated from Italy to New York “at age 16 without a penny in his pocket,” he says, “but with this idea in his mind to go somewhere and do something, build something.” He sees the opera as a cross-cultural mix, filled with American frontier realism and a peculiarly Italian blend of “hope, nostalgia and cynicism: bittersweet.” Puccini’s fascination with the West was far from unique. Italians flooded the New World in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and images of the Wild West were commonplace all over Europe. Puccini even saw Buffalo Bill Cody in Milan in 1890, says Laura Basini, a Sacramento State music historian who specializes in the period. Visiting New York in 1907, Puccini saw Belasco’s “The Girl of the Golden West” and was swept away by the play’s imagery: the great mountains and colossal trees — and a storm, simulated with the help of 32 people operating backstage machinery.

Belasco “was known for his stage realism,” Basini explains. “He was the king of naturalism on the stage in a way that was a precursor to film.” Now inspired to compose his opera, Puccini created music that was “tied to the vastness of this new landscape, which he painted in his massive orchestration,” says Basini. “He said, ‘Away with “Bohème” and “Butterfly.’ ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ has a tougher side. It’s brassier, it’s more elemental, more vigorous than the earlier works. Puccini’s new sound world mirrors the unique visual imagery of the American West.” Contact Richard Scheinin at 408-920-5069. San Francisco Opera La Fanciulla del West – review | Music | The Guardian La Fanciulla del West – review 4 / 5 stars Grand theatre, Leeds A rare outing for Puccini's proto-spaghetti western is spartanly staged, but the performers excel The first spaghetti western … Robert Hayward and Dean Robinson in La Fanciulla del West.

Photograph: Clive Barda/ArenaPAL Wednesday 22 January 2014 07.52 EST First published on Wednesday 22 January 2014 07.52 EST Share on Messenger Close It's more than 20 years since a major British opera company last presented a new production of what has been called the first spaghetti western. La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) is one of Puccini's greatest scores, and it's hard to explain why it is not seen more regularly. The setting, a mining community during the Californian goldrush of the 1850s, is no more exotic or unlikely than the orientalisms of Madama Butterfly and Turandot, while its central characters are as crisply defined as those in La Bohème or Tosca. In fact, one of the fascinations of the new Opera North production, directed by Aletta Collins, is the dramatic and psychological parallels it draws, intentionally or not, with Tosca; though in Fanciulla, the ending is a happy one.

It could be that companies steer clear of the piece because it seems to need an expensive, naturalistic staging; Covent Garden's famously lavish production by Piero Fagioni might be partly responsible for that. But Collins's show, designed by Giles Cadle, demonstrates that extravagance isn't necessary. Minnie's Polka Saloon may seem a bit spartan – a couple of pine-tree silhouettes have to stand in for the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, while there are some funny hats and unlikely facial hair among the chorus – but the drama is drawn tightly enough to make such things irrelevant. The high standard of the performances helps a great deal, too. Richard Farnes and the Opera North orchestra relish every morsel of the music, in which Puccini shamelessly assimilates modernist ideas (from Debussy and Ravel especially) and makes them indelibly his own; it all provides sumptuous support to the singers. Alwyn Mellor gets the balance between Minnie's dreams of personal happiness and her duties as foster mother to the miners just right, and copes heroically with the cruel demands of Puccini's vocal writing.

Rafael Rojas gives Dick Johnson a nice mix of machismo and self-pitying sentimentality, while Robert Hayward 's brooding Rance is a fascinating study in obsession and self-loathing, and succeeds in making the character genuinely touching in the final moments. The smaller roles – especially Bonaventura Bottone's bartender Nick, Graeme Danby's Wells Fargo agent, Ashby, and Eddie Wade's Sonora – are just as sharply defined. Some of the direction of the chorus could be less caricatured – it's hard to believe the dysfunctional bunch of the first act turns into the lynch mob of the third – but that's a minor quibble. Opportunities to see and, particularly, to hear this music come along too rarely nowadays to worry about that. • Did you catch this show – or any other recently?

Tell us about it using #gdnreview Puccini's 'The Girl of the Golden West' : NPR Puccini's 'The Girl of the Golden West' Puccini's 'The Girl of the Golden West' From Glimmerglass Opera Embed Embed Email August 17, 200712:01 AM ET In Puccini's Girl of the Golden West, Minnie shows Jack Rance that she's not a woman to be trifled with. They're played by Emily Pulley and Jake Gardner in a production from Glimmerglass Opera. George Mott/Glimmerglass Opera hide caption toggle caption Aaron St. Clair Nicholson ... Sonora Craig Phillips ........................ Jake Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra Stewart Robertson, conductor Giacomo Puccini was never shy when it came to writing operas with exotic settings — or at least settings that seemed exotic to European audiences. Turandot is set in ancient China. Madame Butterfly is set in Japan, around 1900. The last act of Manon Lescaut takes place on a "vast, arid plain," which somehow turns up on the outskirts of New Orleans.

Still, Puccini may have outdone himself with La Fanciulla del West — The Girl of the Golden West. In this one, Puccini's signature "verismo" style comes face to face with America's Wild West. It's as though an Italian potboiler has somehow landed in Deadwood! Surely, this is the only opera to feature phrases like, "Whiskey per tutti!" and "Hello regazzi," and to have one of its crucial moments decided by, "una partita a poker." The story is based on an American drama by David Belasco. Puccini was a big fan of Belasco, who also wrote the play that inspired Madame Butterfly, and there's still a Broadway theater bearing Belasco's name. Puccini's Fanciulla was premiered in 1910 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and it was an all-star affair. Dick Johnson was sung by the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso. Emmy Destinn was Minnie and Arturo Toscanini conducted.

It was a popular and critical success from the beginning, but it does contain some of Puccini's most modern-sounding music and not everyone takes a liking to it the first time around. The character of Minnie was also something new for Puccini: She's a tough cookie, unlike the sad, put-upon, mostly doomed leading ladies of his other operas. In Fanciulla, Minnie takes gun, and fate, firmly in hand. Article continues after sponsorship On World of Opera, host Lisa Simeone brings us a performance from a more pastoral New York locale than the Metropolitan. It's a production by Glimmerglass Opera, about 10 miles north of Cooperstown. The Story of 'The Girl of the Golden West' Email August 17, 200712:01 AM ET Minnie and Dick Johnson, played by Emily Pulley and Roger Honeywell, dance a tentative waltz at Minnie's Polka Saloon.

George Mott/Glimmerglass Opera hide caption toggle caption George Mott/Glimmerglass Opera As Dick Johnson is about to hang, Minnie jumps in to save him, in Glimmerglass Opera's production of The Girl of the Golden West. George Mott/Glimmerglass Opera hide caption toggle caption George Mott/Glimmerglass Opera ACT ONE: The opera is set during the Gold Rush of 1849, and opens at sunset in the Polka Saloon, owned by a woman named Minnie. Nick, the bartender, greets miners who wander in for drinks. Minnie is preparing to lead Bible studies, assisted by two Indians, Billy Jackrabbit and his girlfriend Wowkle. Miners known as Happy, Harry, Handsome and Joe sit down to play a game of cards, with a fellow named Sid as the overseer. But Sid is caught cheating, and the miners threaten to hang him. Sheriff Jack Rance steps in to administer a little frontier justice. He pins a Two of Spades to Sid's chest as a mark of shame, and tells the others to spread the word: If Sid removes the card, he'll be shot on sight.

Ashby, a Wells Fargo agent, shows up asking for Minnie. He also tells Sheriff Rance that he's closing in on a notorious bandit who goes by the name Ramerrez. Rance begins to brag that Minnie will soon be his wife. But Sonora taunts him, saying Minnie really loves him. It's no wonder. Nick has been telling every man who comes to the bar that Minnie is sweet on him — leading each one to buy rounds for the house to celebrate. Rance declares his love for Minnie, who brushes him off. Rance sings of his unhappy childhood and his gambling life, saying he'd give a fortune for just one kiss. Minnie says that's fine, but she's holding out for true love. Nick then brings in a stranger, who calls himself Dick Johnson, and has been asking for whiskey and water. Rance demands to know Johnson's business, but Minnie vouches for him. It seems they've met before, and the two of them dance a waltz together. Ashby and a group of men drag in Jose Castro, a member of the Ramerrez gang.

Castro says he has no loyalty to Ramerrez, and to save his own skin he offers to lead the men to the bandit's camp. Then, speaking privately to Johnson, Castro tells him that the gang is ready to rob the saloon and he's only leading Ashby and the others away as a ruse. Johnson is supposed to return a whistle as a signal that the coast is clear. Castro and the other men leave. Nick says that a bandit has been seen hanging around, which worries Minnie. But Johnson comforts her and agrees to come to her place for dinner. There's a whistle from outside, but Johnson doesn't return the signal. It seems an evening with Minnie is more important to him than another heist. ACT TWO: In Minnie's cabin Billy and Wowkle, her Indian servants, sing a lullaby to their child and talk about getting married. Minnie sends Billy away so she can dress for dinner with Dick Johnson. Johnson shows up for their date and wonders about Minnie's unorthodox life among the rough and tumble miners. Minnie says she wouldn't have it any other way. After dinner, Johnson persuades Minnie to give him her very first kiss.

He knows he shouldn't let things go further but a blizzard prevents him from leaving. Minnie says he can stay over; he can have her bed, and she'll sleep by the fire. Then they hear voices outside. Minnie hides Johnson behind the bed curtains and opens her door to find Rance, accompanied by Nick, Ashby and a miner called Sonora. They say they're worried about her. They've discovered that Dick Johnson is really the notorious bandit Ramerrez, and Nick saw him heading up the trail toward Minnie's cabin. Minnie tells them she's fine, and sends them away. Alone with Johnson again, she confronts him. He admits that he is Ramerrez, but begs for forgiveness and says he'll give up everything to be with her. Minnie says she can forgive him for being a bandit, but not for stealing her first kiss with a pack of lies. Johnson leaves, but as he closes the door behind him there's a gunshot. Minnie goes to investigate and finds Johnson outside, wounded and bleeding. She brings him in, and helps him climb through a trapdoor into the attic just before Rance arrives.

Minnie says Johnson isn't there and dares Rance to search her cabin. Rance is about to give up and go when a drop of blood falls from the ceiling. He orders Johnson to come downstairs. Johnson stumbles down the ladder, and passes out. Minnie challenges Rance to a game of poker. If she loses, she'll marry Rance. If Minnie wins, Rance must let her go off with Johnson. Rance accepts the terms. They play poker, best two hands out of three. It's a scene worthy of a classic, Hollywood Western — a tense showdown with life and death stakes, playing out with ominous music thrumming in the background. During the game, Minnie pretends to faint and switches her cards so she ends up with the winning hand. Rance is furious, but he holds up his end of the deal. He leaves, and Minnie tends to the wounded Johnson. ACT THREE: Some time later, Nick, Ashby and Sherrif Rance gather around a campfire. Ashby says he thinks his men have caught up with Ramerrez — but it turns out to be a false alarm. They talk about how everything has changed since this "Johnson" appeared.

The jealous Rance points to Minnie's cabin and says that before long, she'll see her lover at the end of a rope — and soon it looks like he's right. Johnson is finally captured. He's brought in tethered to his horse, and Billy is ordered to prepare the noose. Johnson says he's ready to die. His only request is that Minnie never be told that he's dead. He wants her to think that he's just fine, gone off to lead a new life somewhere else. Hearing him talk lovingly about Minnie is too much for Rance, who punches Johnson in the face. Johnson is about to hang when we hear Minnie's voice. She rides in on horseback and pleads for mercy for Johnson. When the men ignore her she draws a pistol, threatening to kill both Johnson and herself. The miners are divided over what to do. Then she reminds the men of all she's done for them, how she's helped every one of them in special ways, and they give in. Outnumbered, Rance has no choice but to turn his prisoner loose. Minnie and Johnson are allowed to leave together, unharmed.

The miners bid their darling Minnie a sad farewell and she and Johnson go off, singing, into the distance. Scandalissimo! Puccini's sex life exposed | The Independent Features Scandalissimo! Puccini's sex life exposed The private life of Giacomo Puccini was famously as colourful as his operas, but only now has the truth emerged about the scandal that almost undid him. It's an extraordinary tale of infidelity, jealousy and vengeance that continues to haunt the lives of his descendants to this day Saturday 5 July 2008 23:00 BST Click to follow The Independent Culture This year, the many celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of Puccini's birth are set to include the unveiling of a new al fresco opera house on the shores of the lake where many of his masterpieces were composed. Giacomo Puccini was the most commercially successful opera composer there has ever been. At his death in 1924 he was worth well over £130m by today's standards.

Much of this wealth came from the wonder years (1895-1904) when the Tuscan maestro turned out in rapid succession three of the most widely performed operas in the world, La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly, while living in idyllic surroundings in Torre del Lago on the shores of Lake Massaciuccoli. Then he seemed to run out of steam, not finishing his next work, La Fanciulla del West, until 1910. While accomplished, La Fanciulla isn't in the same league as Bohème, Tosca and Butterfly. So what went wrong? For years it was assumed that the suicide of a maid working in the Puccini household may have had a lot to do with it. The story is well-documented. On 23 January 1909, Doria Manfredi committed suicide by taking three tablets of corrosive sublimate. It took three days for her to die from what today we would call mercury poisoning.

Elvira Bonturi, the composer's 39-year-old wife, was blamed for her death, for she had hounded Doria and publicly accused her of having an affair with Puccini. When the local court ordered an autopsy, it was found that Doria was a virgin and Elvira was sued for slander. She was sentenced to five months and five days and only escaped prison when the composer offered 12,000 lire compensation to the Manfredi family. Subsequently the couple were estranged for some months, but this tragedy hardly accounts for the seven years it took Puccini to complete La Fanciulla. Besides, Elvira's persecution of Doria only began in the October of 1908. The dates simply do not match up. Recently, fresh light has been shed on what went on in Villa Puccini 100 years ago. Giacomo Puccini had made his home in a fishing village called Torre del Lago. Here, surrounded by his common-law wife, his stepdaughter and son, he wrote music, went out in fast cars, or took his speedboat out on the lake.

Or as he himself put it: "I am a mighty hunter of wild fowl, operatic librettos and attractive women." It was Puccini's pursuit of women that created the great crisis in his life. This is a tale of infidelity, jealousy, vengeance and despair. It goes a long way towards explaining the composer's fallow period. Its repercussions are still being felt on the lakeside today. The story begins not with Doria's suicide, but eight years earlier when Puccini was working on Madama Butterfly. It was not uncommon for the maestro to fall in love with other women when composing. He called these amourettes his "little gardens". In 1900, while working on Butterfly, Puccini fell for a young girl he met in Turin. He nicknamed her "Corinna" and was so obsessed with her that Elvira, in despair, contemplated leaving him . Puccini and Elvira Bonturi were not married at the time. She was the wife of an old schoolfriend of his. The couple had met in 1884 when Puccini was hired to give Elvira piano lessons. They soon began an affair.

In 1886, amid much scandal, Elvira had left her husband for Puccini, bringing her six-year-old daughter Fosca with her to Torre del Lago. In due course Elvira bore Puccini a son, Antonio, but the couple were unable to marry and legitimise the boy because divorce was not possible in Italy at that time. The situation may well have suited the composer, who claimed he enjoyed falling in love and certainly enjoyed teasing Elvira about his "little gardens". This time, however, the infatuation got out of control. There are suggestions that Puccini had proposed marriage to his Corinna. However, on 25 February 1903, fate took a strange turn. On that night Puccini suffered the first-ever motorcar accident to receive widespread press coverage in Italy. Near Lucca, his chauffeur plunged off the road. The composer was found pinned underneath the car, almost asphyxiated by petrol fumes and with his right leg broken. He needed someone at home to care for him. And the very next day, by another strange act of fate, Elvira became a widow.

Her husband Narciso died, leaving no obstacle to Puccini marrying his companion of 17 years. Puccini's publisher and mentor, Giulio Ricordi, tried to convince the bedridden composer to give up Corinna and do the decent thing by Elvira. Goaded by Ricordi and pressed by his ever-attentive sisters, Puccini hired a private detective, who discovered that the Turinese girl had duped him. She was not the innocent she pretended to be. Not only was she having relationships with other men, there was ' a strong possibility money was changing hands. Puccini broke definitively with her in a note burning with shame and anger: "What an abyss of depravity and prostitution! You are a shit, and with this I leave you to your future." Stung, Corinna wrote to him threatening legal action and to go public over the affair. Puccini panicked. We know this from a note that Elvira subsequently wrote to him. "For that business [the alleged breach of promise] you could have gone to gaol...

I still remember well how, when the famous letter [from Corinna] arrived, you became pusillanimous at the thought of a sentence and talked about fleeing to Switzerland." According to recent research by musicologist Dieter Schickling and novelist Helmut Krausser, the situation was rescued when Corinna's father was convicted for importuning and exposing himself to an underage girl. Any accusations made by the daughter of such a family would have enjoyed little credibility in the Italian legal system. Puccini was saved but humiliated. Among Schickling and Krausser's discoveries was the fact that the Corinna correspondence was not in any Puccini archive but in the possession of the family of Elvira Bonturi's sister. "Perhaps Elvira passed the documents to her sister for safe-keeping," says Puccini producer and scholar Vivien Hewitt, "so that she would always be able to remind him about them if he strayed in the future." The following year, on 3 January 1904, a week after finishing Butterfly and as soon as the legal 10 months of widowhood were up, Puccini married his Elvira.

It could hardly be called a good start to a marriage. "Puccini's personal life and his creativity were always intertwined," says Hewitt. "His heartbreak over Corinna was probably instrumental in generating his most powerfully tragic music in the form of the last act of Madama Butterfly." After 'Butterfly', the humiliated composer did not produce another opera for six years. When that opera was finally completed, it depicted a new kind of Puccini heroine: not a victim like Mimi or Butterfly, nor a jealous, destructive creature like Tosca, but a tough, capable woman, Minnie, who runs a saloon in a California mining camp. Many people have asked where Puccini found his new muse. One of those intrigued by this question was Italian film director Paolo Benvenuti, whose film La Ragazza di Lago (The Girl of the Lake), premieres at the Venice Film Festival this August. "Six years ago I started an in-depth research project centred on the suicide of Doria Manfredi. I soon noticed that while writing an opera, Puccini tended to fall in love with a real-life person similar to his protagonist.

I could see no similarity between Doria and the heroine of La Fanciulla del West, but my research team revealed there was another woman in Torre del Lago who bore a striking similarity to the independent, gun-toting saloon owner Minnie. That woman was Doria's cousin, Giulia Manfredi." Like Minnie, Giulia worked in a hostelry frequented by hunters and local farmers. This was the Chalet Emilio, named after her father, Emilio Manfredi. It still sits on the edge of Lake Massaciuccoli today, opposite Villa Puccini. "She was independent and commanding but at the same time humble and affectionate with locals and strangers alike," says Benvenuti. Gossip in Torre del Lago suggested that the composer had had an affair with Giulia, but Benvenuti had no evidence.

"Then in October 2006 my research co-ordinator overheard a seaside pizza-parlour owner in Lido Di Camaiore saying that the illegitimate son of Giacomo Puccini and Giulia Manfredi always used to eat in his restaurant." Believing that he was on to something remarkable, Benvenuti followed up the lead, tracing the Manfredi family to a modest house in Cisanello near Pisa. "The woman who answered the door was Nadia, a simple housewife who had always worked as a hairdresser. She was the daughter of Antonio Manfredi, a hotel night porter who had lived in Pisa almost all his life." One thing Benvenuti noticed immediately: Nadia Manfredi has Giacomo Puccini's hooded eyelids. "Nadia is a sweet, rather shy person," says Benvenuti. "She has suffered a lot from her father's sense of abandonment and his appalling doubts about his identity." In January 2007, Nadia showed Benvenuti a dusty suitcase of her father's that had been kept in the cellar for years.

Inside, the director found approximately 40 letters and various documents that revealed the truth behind the suicide of her great-aunt Doria. Most important among these was a handwritten, undated memorandum Puccini had written on two sheets of headed notepaper from a Milan hotel where he was staying. These notes reconstructed the sequence of events that led up to Doria's death. The story that was revealed is much more complex than Elvira Bonturi's jealous persecution of an innocent domestic servant. The tragedy begins around the end of September 1908, when Puccini sent word that he was returning to Torre del Lago. By this time he had found his new "little garden" in the feisty Giulia Manfredi and was already working on Fanciulla. Puccini asked that Doria open up the house ahead of his return. "By accident," says Benvenuti, "Doria discovered Puccini's stepdaughter, Fosca, in flagrante with the librettist of Fanciulla, Guelfo Civinini, in Villa Puccini." Fosca was 28 at the time and married to the impresario Salvatore Leonardi.

"Fosca was afraid that Doria would tell all so she decided to discredit Doria and accused the girl of having an affair with her stepfather. Puccini's wife Elvira sacked Doria." Distressed, Doria wrote to Puccini, saying that Fosca had plotted against her to cover her own immoral behaviour. Puccini secretly met with Doria and reassured the girl that he would try to sort matters. We do not know if he did anything at all, but we do know that when news of Doria's accusation reached Elvira, she was furious. "She was convinced Doria was adding insult to injury," says Benvenuti. "Elvira was certainly spying on her husband at the time and one night she saw him in a compromising situation with another woman whom she now assumed to be Doria. On 1 January 1909, Elvira accosted Doria and her cousin Giulia and called Doria a "gossip and a filthy creature".

On 19 January she insulted Doria in front of the Villa Puccini before witnesses, calling her a "whore" and a "tart" and subsequently told the onlookers that Doria was a "tramp who ran after my husband" and that "sooner or later I will drown her in the lake". On 23 January she accused Giulia Manfredi of being a go-between for Puccini and Doria, and told her that Doria would never set foot in Torre del Lago again. "Doria was entirely innocent," says Benvenuti. "But she could not defend herself without betraying both her cousin and the maestro, whom she revered and adored." After Doria's drawn-out and painful suicide, the local court stepped in and ordered an autopsy, which revealed the girl to be a virgin; Doria's family took Elvira to court. She was convicted of defamation, slander and menaces towards Doria Manfredi on three separate occasions. The impact on the Puccini family was huge.

"Not only was there was a separation between Puccini and his wife," says Benvenuti, "but Fosca's husband, the impresario Leonardi, got wind of the truth and blackmailed her. Eventually Fosca appealed to her mother for financial help and confessed the truth [about her relationship with Guelfo Civinini and Doria's discovery that day in autumn 1908]. By this time, Elvira's finances were drained too and in the end she had to admit the truth to Giacomo and beg for help. He took her back, paying the Manfredi family to drop their legal action and Leonardi for his silence." Elvira avoided prison and as the repercussions died down, Puccini recovered something of his creativity. But in researching his film on the two Manfredi girls, Benvenuti found he had uncovered much more than he expected. "Puccini's relationship with Giulia lasted until his own demise. Many years later, in June 1923, Giulia had a son and christened him with Puccini's grandfather's name, Antonio.

The boy was farmed out to a nurse in Pisa and a contract was drawn up with her for the then-massive sum of 1,000 lire a month. Significantly for those who are sceptical that Puccini was the father of Antonio Manfredi, Benvenuti points out that the maintenance money stopped abruptly in December 1924, just days after the composer's death in Brussels. Young Antonio was brought up away from Torre del Lago in the city of Pisa. Says Benvenuti: "Antonio Manfredi died in poverty, aged 65, in 1988. Like Giacomo and Elvira's son (also called Antonio Puccini), he died of a tumour. He bore a very striking resemblance to Puccini, as you can see from his photograph. In fact there is a resemblance that descends through the generations in the photographs of his daughter, Nadia Manfredi, his granddaughter, Giada, and his great-grandson, Giacomo Manfredi.

Giacomo, now 10, is the spitting image of the young Puccini." Emboldened by her conversations with Paolo Benvenuti, on 20 February this year Nadia Manfredi went before a court in Milan requesting a comparison between the composer's DNA and that of Antonio Manfredi. "I wish to establish whether my father was Puccini's son," she explained. "I am interested in the moral satisfaction of knowing the truth, one way or the other, so that I can put my ghosts to rest." This move has been opposed by Simonetta Puccini, who owns Villa Puccini. In 1980, as Simonetta Giurumello, she went before Italy's highest civil tribunal, the Court of Cassation, to prove she was an illegitimate daughter of the composer's legitimate son, Antonio. Antonio Puccini had died without an heir in 1946. Thirty-four years later, Simonetta Giurumello was able to get herself legally recognised as his daughter. At that point she changed her name to Puccini, obtained a decree from Milan freezing all existing Puccini assets, and took possession of the villa in Torre del Lago.

Nadia claims she is not motivated by the Puccini fortune. "I want justice for my father because he died in complete poverty, like a beggar. My father spent his entire life not knowing who his father was. I hope to give a name to the father of my father." Lawyers for Simonetta argue that in Italy, while the first generation have forever to prove paternity, a statute of limitation of just two years applies to subsequent descendants, such as grandchildren. Nadia's lawyers are requesting that the limitation should run for two years after finding evidence, not after the death of Giacomo Puccini. It is significant that while Puccini's creative recovery began with La Fanciulla del West, he only regained the form that he had displayed in Bohème, Tosca and Butterfly with Turandot, the opera he was still writing at the time of his death. Interestingly, the composer hit a new musical wall in 1922 while telling the story of the vengeful, man-hating Chinese empress. It was only when he instructed his librettists to create the character of a poor servant-girl, Liu, who commits suicide rather than betray the opera's hero, that he was able to continue.

Puccini died with the last act of Turandot incomplete, haemorrhaging in the aftermath of drastic throat surgery. According to the conductor Arturo Toscanini, the maestro laid down his pen after the suicide of Liu. Doria Manfredi was to haunt Puccini for the rest of his life, while her cousin was left holding the baby. The 54th Annual Puccini Festival runs from Friday to 5 September in the village of Torre del Lago Puccini, Italy. Adrian Mourby is the recipient of the 2007 Puccini Award for Journalism. An extended version of this piece was first published in 'Opera Now' magazine More about: Puccini's `La Fanciulla del West' turns 100 - Boston.com Music Puccini's `La Fanciulla del West' turns 100 This Friday, Dec.

3, 2010 photo shows Marcello Giordani, foreground, performing as Ramerrez alongside Lucio Gallo, left, performing as Jack Rance, and Deborah Voigt performing as Minnie during the final dress rehearsal of Giacomo Puccini's "La Fanciulla del West", at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) By Ronald Blum Associated Press / December 11, 2010 E-mail this article Add a personal message:(80 character limit) Your E-mail: Text size – + NEW YORK—Puccini would have been proud. Exactly 100 years after the Metropolitan Opera presented the world premiere of his "La Fanciulla del West," the company revived the spaghetti western on Friday night for its second performance this season. Deborah Voigt, more renowned for her Wagner and Strauss than Italian roles, gave a riveting and moving portrayal of Minnie, the gun-toting owner of the Polka Saloon, set in a California mining camp during the 1849-50 gold rush.

Marcello Giordani displayed a pinging tenor as her Dick Johnson (the disguised bandit Ramerrez), and baritone Lucio Gallo was the Snidely Whiplash-like sheriff, Jack Rance. With dozens of audience members garbed in fringed Western wear and cowboy hats, it was a festive night in a Lincoln Center auditorium where tuxedos and evening gowns are more common. At the old Met on 40th Street and Broadway, "Fanciulla" was the Met's very first world premiere. Based on David Belasco's play "The Girl of the Golden West," which Puccini saw in New York three years earlier, it starred Enrico Caruso as Johnson, Emmy Destinn as Minnie and Pasquale Amato as Rance. Arturo Toscanini conducted, and the composer was in the audience. Prices were doubled to $3 to $10, and there was a report of tickets being scalped for up to $150. Applause caused multiple curtain calls after the first act, including a solo bow by the composer.

Despite its initial success, "Fanciulla" didn't prove to be as popular as "La Boheme," "Tosca" or "Madama Butterfly." It disappeared from the Met from 1914-29, 1931-61, 1970-91 and 1993 until now. Giancarlo Monaco's 1991 production, only the fourth staging of the work at the Met, has the style of realistic sets the company frowns upon these days. There is a huge Polka Saloon with grand wooden beams, pretty snow falling outside Minnie's mountain cabin and a street near the camp that could pass for a movie set. Onstage horses add to the Wild West feel. Minnie is an over-the-top, bravura role, a frontier woman of independence, strength and tenderness in a community of foul-mouthed roughnecks. After a couple of unsteady notes at the start, Voigt displayed a shining top that pierced through the sumptuous orchestration. But it was not just her voice that made it a memorable night.

Her warm, endearing manner combined with an infectious stage-dominating moxie to make Minnie all her own. She was a force Rance just could not deal with. Giordani, at times bothered in the past by back pain that caused his movement to be a bit stiff, was in fine form as Johnson, the former bandit redeemed by Minnie's love. His "Ch'ella mi creda e lontano (Let her think I am free and far away)" was a highlight of the evening and along with the lovers walking off to "Addio, mia California!" Gallo was appropriately sinister and stiff. A fine cast was rounded out by Dwayne Croft (Sonora), Tony Stevenson (Nick, the bartender) and Ginger Costa-Jackson (the Indian mother Wowkle). Conductor Nicola Luisotti, who led Voigt's first Minnie in San Francisco last June, created a wonderful ebb and flow that drove the action thrillingly. There are seven more performances through Jan. 8, with the finale simulcast in high definition to theaters around the world.

------ Voigt endearing as Puccini's "Golden Girl" - Boston.com Voigt endearing as Puccini's "Golden Girl" By Mike Silverman For The Associated Press / June 10, 2010 E-mail this article Add a personal message:(80 character limit) Your E-mail: Text size – + SAN FRANCISCO—"La Fanciulla del West" is Giacomo Puccini's "American opera." It is adapted from an American play by David Belasco called "The Girl of the Golden West" and takes place in gold-rush era California. The composer drew on American folk tunes for inspiration. And the work had its world premiere in 1910 at New York's Metropolitan Opera. So it's fitting that in the opera's 100th anniversary year, one of the leading American sopranos of her generation, Deborah Voigt, is adding the title role of Minnie to her repertory. And adding it in a big way. She sang her very first performance Wednesday night in a splendid new production at the San Francisco Opera. And she'll repeat it next season both at the Met and at Chicago's Lyric Opera.

Judging by the opening night results, audiences in all three cities are in for a treat. Minnie, a spunky, romantically inexperienced saloon proprietor, is that rare Puccini heroine who doesn't die at the end of the opera. Far from it, she gets her man -- the reformed bandit Ramerrez (known as Dick Johnson) -- frees him from the hangman's noose, and rides off with him into the sunset singing "Addio, California." Both vocally and dramatically, the role is almost ideally suited to Voigt's strengths -- large, gleaming high notes (most of which hit their mark squarely), and a stage presence that radiates an endearing charm, whether she's teaching Bible class to the miners, cheating in a poker game against Sheriff Jack Rance or riding in on a white horse to save her man. Minnie makes her very first entrance firing a gun, and the vocal fireworks soon follow -- sudden and frequent ascents to high notes that must cut through a thick orchestral texture. In this opera, at least, Voigt's ability to deliver on the climaxes more than compensates for her major vocal weakness, a quavery, almost gurgling sound in the middle of her register.

The role of Dick Johnson is only slightly less punishing, calling for a tenor sound well beyond the weight of a lyric voice. Salvatore Licitra has volume and high notes to spare. What he doesn't seem to have is much vocal subtlety, and there is little warmth in his phrasing. Nor was there much chemistry in the air between him and Voigt, even during their dramatic "first kiss," which Puccini sets to a tumultuous orchestral climax. Baritone Robert Frontali snarled effectively in the not-quite-villainous role of Rance, and several of the other men who populate the Polka saloon made memorable contributions, including baritone Trevor Scheunemann as minstrel Jake Wallace, baritone Brian Leerhuber as the homesick Jim Larkens, tenor Steven Cole as Nick the bartender and bass Kevin Langan as the Wells Fargo agent, Ashby. The production, directed by Lorenzo Mariani with sets by Maurizio Balo and costumes by Gabriel Berry, is a co-production with companies in Palermo, Italy, and Liege, Belgium. It's effective in evoking the setting and cleverly designed to focus attention on the action.

Mountain cliffs dominate the background in all three acts (we actually see miners with pickaxes suspended from ropes during the opening measures). The furniture in Minnie's saloon -- a bar, a piano, a card table -- moves to the sides near the end of Act 1, leaving Minnie and Johnson to sing their first love duet on a stage bare but for a few lanterns. Similarly, in Act 2, the furniture in Minnie's cabin eventually slides off to the edges of the stage, leaving just a small table for the poker game between Minnie and Rance. The major hero of the night did not appear on stage until the curtain calls: the company's music director, Nicola Luisotti, who did wonders conducting the orchestra. The humor and the suspense, the turmoil and the tenderness that Puccini poured into this rhythmically and harmonically daring score all emerged in a seamless flow under his energetic baton. Online:

Question: In which Puccini opera does Minnie own a saloon called The Polka?
Answer: THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST