La Fanciulla del West

• Opera

California, 1850: Hundreds of thousands have fallen for the gold rush - and a few of them have fallen for the barmaid Minnie, who is a meeting place for scattered fortune seekers every evening. Among them is Sheriff Jack Rance. But Minnie falls in love with the stranger Dick Johnson. It soon turns out that Johnson is a wanted robber: the sheriff wants to hang him and get Minnie for himself. A game of poker is set to decide Dick's life: does Minnie have an ace up her sleeve?

Puccini certainly had one thing with his "Fanciulla", and even considered it to be his best: after global successes such as "La Bohème" and "Madama Butterfly", he had reinvented himself with his "Spanish Western". In "La Fanciulla del West", ragtime rhythms, echoes of gospel and the music of the native Indians are combined with Italian charm to create a lavishly orchestrated broadband sound. This did not fail to have an impact at the premiere in New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1910. And yet the piece long eked out a shadowy existence next to Puccini's big hits - until the musical gold diggers came along...

Directed by: Vincent Boussard
Set design: Vincent Lemaire
Costumes: Christian Lacroix
Light: Guido Levi

Premiere on: 01.02.2015