PUCCINI'S GOLD-RUSH OPERA, WITH TOUCHES OF HOLLYWOOD
                And a Horseback Heroine with Nerves of Steel 
                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of June 10-17, 2010
                                                                  Vol. 12, No. 110
          The San Francisco Opera’s June mini-season looks like a winner so far: “Faust” with Patricia Racette, now  the centennial “La Fanciulla del West” with Deborah Voigt, and then “Die Walkuere” with the Dutch superstar Eva-Maria Westbroek and a host of others.             The bigger-than-life canvas of  “La Fanciulla del West” which just opened June 9 is a megahit, again establishing it as Puccini’s most unfairly neglected opera, done here only six times in the SFO’s 87 seasons.
            With this one, the SFO has truly struck gold. Is there a more dramatic operatic entrance anywhere than the gold-rush heroine Minnie saving the day in the finale “reel,” riding up on her charger to save her guy from the noose? (Though this is scripted, many an operatic Minnie, a mite more tremulous or weighty than Voigt, foregoes the horseplay in favor of just brandishing her pistol.)
            “Reel” is apt; there are bigger-than-life characters, but no real heroes. Puccini and his librettists clearly had seen early silent westerns on film and used similar plot devices: A wild-west woman who has to take the law into her own hands, in love with a robber who wants redemption, bedeviled by a corrupt sheriff named Rance. Is it any wonder that Enrico Caruso himself had played the robber in the premiere, presaging the imperfect heroics of Clint Eastwood’s cowboys?
            Easily overlooked is Puccini’s boldness in harmonies for this 1910 score, well ahead of anything apart from his swan song “Turandot.” He jolted Italian opera forward with his glints of whole-tone scales, pentatonic, ragtime, as well as progressive chordal structures, all within the context of his great melodic gifts. The only separately detachable element is the Robber Johnson’s act-three song with the fib-message about going off to a better land, one that was sung by Italian soldiers on the front in World War One.
            But this is Minnie’s show. And in her first role, soprano Voigt already owns it, lock, stock and gun barrel, right from her first Annie-Oakley-like appearance  in the miners’ bar. More slim than ever, she plays the role’s sweetness more than its toughness, at least until the gritty vigilante scenes, and she turns the tough, whiskey-swilling miners into sentimental tabby cats who dote on her every word. When it later comes to saving her swain pursued by the law, she is all fire and resolve, even cheating at cards to win his freedom.             Once the opening scene was past, she came out lustrously in full voice, a lirico-spinto soprano that warmed the whole Opera House.
            It was a troika cast---three definitive stars, and a huge supporting cast bitten by gold fever. She was magnificently balanced by Salvatore Licitra (Johnson), one of the best Italian dramatic tenors around in this post-Pavarotti era---a strapping figure who can sing, project and do it all on pitch. The diabolical sheriff Rance is the stentorian baritone Roberto Frontali, in a perfect Scarpia-like role.
            Blended in with them is the superb chorus of ragtag miners and figures like Kevin Langan (Ashby) and, as the outstanding Sonora, Timothy Mix.
            They weave through Puccini’s score threaded with at least four significant leitmotivs. If the opera has a flaw, it is in the opening miners’-bar scene that singularly lacks the conciseness of Puccini’s best work.
            The sets (Maurizio Balờ) represent a co-production with two European theaters, which may account for the preposterous cliff designs for the Sierra. Music Director Nicola Luisotti brought it all off from the pit, down to the nervous chatter of the double basses to convey Minnie’s palpitating heart in the all-or-nothing card game. Lorenco Mariani directed, with impact. 
            OPERA NOTES---The night’s best chuckle came from the supertitle translation line, “He must be from San Francisco. He wants his whiskey with water!”...Shouldn't every new "Fanciulla" production be underwritten by Wells Fargo Bank? It's mentioned repeatedly in the opera, and the WF agent, Ashby, has a substantial role. Can't get much better free publicity.

        “La Fanciulla del West” (The Girl of the Golden West) by Puccini, in Italian, at the S.F. Opera, running through July 2. With orchestra. For info: (415) 864-3330, or go online. 
        ©Paul Hertelendy 2010
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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