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Seen and Heard International, 28/10/2018 |
Jim Pritchard |
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Puccini: La Fanciulla del West, New York, Metropolitan Opera, 27. Oktober 2018 |
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Westbroeck and Kaufmann Bring Real Gold to Them Thar Hills in Met’s La fanciulla del West
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Every time I come back to La fanciulla del West – which frankly given how
little it is performed is not that often – it is worth retelling how 1907
was significant for fans of Westerns both in the cinema and in the opera
house. It was the year that Marion Morrison was born – we know him better as
John Wayne! – and also when Puccini found the American subject for his next
opera when he saw David Belasco’s play (The Girl of the Golden West) on
Broadway and this gave him the ideal scenario: ‘an open space in the great
California forest, with colossal trees’.
La fanciulla was a success
with the public on its première at the Metropolitan Opera, New York in 1910
but critics were generally unenthusiastic (as was most of Europe when they
heard the opera). The music was considered rather modern and neither
American enough for American critics or sufficiently Italian for those in
Puccini’s home country. Yet Anton Webern said in 1919, how it was ‘A score
with an original sound throughout, splendid, every bar a surprise, with not
a trace of kitsch’.
Taking inspiration from Wagner’s music dramas
Puccini strove to fuse tightly constructed uninterrupted drama with
continuously expressive music with hints of the Debussy’s impressionism. I
recall the words of George Hall when he reflected (in some Covent Garden
programme notes) on how much Puccini ‘revered’ Wagner. Since then I have
always seen the leading characters in Minnie’s Act II cabin as Siegmund
(Dick Johnson), Sieglinde (Minnie) and Hunding (Jack Rance). Writing about
Minnie and Johnson’s kiss, Hall said that ‘The idea of eruptive nature
bursting through the door and initiating a love scene inescapably recalls a
similar moment in Act I of Die Walküre’. For me Minnie’s exultation over the
wounded Johnson sounds very much like Sieglinde’s Act II delirium. It
happens too that the story is also built on a familiar Wagnerian theme: the
‘redemption’ of the sinner (Johnson) by Minnie as ‘das Ewig-Weibliche’ (the
eternal feminine).
Many critics of La fanciulla del West feel it
lacks the pure lyricism of La bohème or Madama Butterfly and is too
melodramatic to be fully credible; and so it has never ranked as high with
Puccini lovers as Bohème, Tosca or Turandot. Much of it does seem unlikely –
a bunch of weeping, childlike gold miners singing in Italian or Minnie’s Act
I bible class – or (now) somewhat offensive, like the Native Americans love
of whisky. Thankfully other stereotyping such as their original caricatured
appearance and the libretto’s pidgin vocabulary was toned down in this
revival of Giancarlo del Monaco 1991 production.
One reason why La
fanciulla del West is worth an occasional revival is because of that rich,
dense score where chromaticism and dissonance are wedded to music from La
bohème, Tosca and Butterfly, the yet to be composed Turandot, as well as a
homage to Verdi’s Aida (in Minnie and Johnson farewell in Act III). Another
reason for its relative unpopularity is that – compared to all those operas
– there is a lack of show-stopping moments in La fanciulla which often just
involves a great outpouring of music with its recurring fragments of motifs
related to characters and events. Nevertheless, the work turned out to have
a lasting effect on popular musicals of the twentieth century. As Matthew
Rose reminded us in his backstage interview, without La fanciulla there
would be little Andrew Lloyd Webber and Johnson’s Act I ‘Quello che tacete’
is central to the Phantom’s ‘The Music of the Night’ and whenever you hear
that music you expect to see Michael Crawford appear on stage at any moment.
La fanciulla contains some of Puccini’s most strikingly human
characters. The romance it depicts is very real and its flawed characters
all too familiar to us. Minnies still exist today in modern-day America I
suspect. Tough with a heart-of-gold, Bible-toting (and quoting), she is
however insecure, naïve and painfully aware of her lack of education.
Puccini’s Minnie falls for the bad boy Johnson who is really Ramirez the
leader of a gang of bandits. Their exchanges, far from being wholly romantic
as in La bohème are recognisably natural, awkward, even embarrassing, and
their burgeoning romance does not go smoothly. Minnie’s idea of a ‘first
date’ involves a single kiss before chastely bedding down Johnson/Ramirez in
her bunk while she rests by the fire. There is also Sheriff Jack Rance’s
lust and jealousy to contend with.
Michael Scott’s monumental
three-dimensional sets and Spaghetti Western-inspired costumes wonderfully
recreate memories of horse operas whether as movies or TV shows. The Act I
Polka saloon, Minnie’s mammoth cabin and the Act III one-horse town prove
cinematic wonders in Gary Halvorson’s direction for the screen. However,
even with all the modern stage machinery that should be available in 2018
and the Met’s massive backstage crew there were intervals of 40 minutes or
more between the acts.
The miners were suitably boisterous and rowdy
at the start of Act I and coordination between pit and stage seemed
hard-won, but it got there in the end. The Met chorus and those with small
individual roles remained a potent part of the performance’s overall
success. Carlo Bosi as Nick the conniving barman, Michael Todd Simpson’s
stalwart Sonora and Matthew Rose’s brutish Wells Fargo agent Ashby, were
acutely characterised and firmly sung. Though Oren Gradus, as the minstrel
Jack Wallace, was not as secure as some around him his nostalgic song was
plaintive enough.
Željko Lučić was singing Jack Rance for the first
time and appeared to revel in this new role singing with potent lascivious
menace and oozing Scarpia-like evil. As good as his singing was a highlight
of his Rance was the high stakes Act II polka game with Minnie as the ‘pot’.
There was a much-heralded return of Jonas Kaufmann to the Met after recent
pull-outs and he was in fine vocal health. There was an ease and command to
his performance throughout the whole evening. His ringing high notes took a
little effort and his sound has darkened significantly so he does not now
sound very Italianate, even for a German. His was an understated, subtly
emotional performance throughout Act I in the playful delicate blossoming of
love between him and Minnie which continued through their duet (of sorts) in
Act II. After that he doesn’t get much chance for further passion because he
is soon shot and seemingly fatally wounded. This being opera Johnson/Ramirez
makes a miraculous recovery and Kaufmann got to sing the much-anticipated
‘Ch’ella mi creda’ in Act III which although burnished was not sufficiently
impassioned nor did it have the visceral effect I was hoping for.
In
a role I have seen her in before, Eva-Maria Westbroek repeated her
wonderfully gauche Minnie, whose love for Johnson, religious zeal, and all
she has done for the miners, makes them release him to start a new life with
her. If her steely voice is not what it once was – and her top notes can now
be a little hit or miss – to her great credit Westbroek never once stepped
out of character from the moment of her dramatic gun totting entrance right
through to her emotional farewell with Johnson (‘Addio mia bella California’
– think Aida!): still a too rare achievement on the operatic stage these
days.
The longueurs of the intervals notwithstanding – which passed
by happily thanks to a combination of the usual backstage interviews, as
well as, the food you can get at the Everyman Cinema and have served to your
seat – this was as satisfying a Met broadcast as any recently. This music
was so much in Marco Armiliato’s blood that remarkably he was able to
conduct the whole opera from memory! In his interview with the personable
Susanna Phillips he said this allowed him to be able to watch the singers
rather than having to look at the score and that the music carries him along
like a river. As heard through the cinema speakers Armiliato and the
reliable Met orchestra created an almost symphonic miasma of swelling sound
with his emotionally nuanced and compelling account of Puccini’s score.
There were some refulgent climaxes that – it much be admitted – occasionally
sounded as if they drowned out the singers on stage but it was all terrific
stuff for fans of verismo opera – which La fanciulla undoubtedly is – and
Westerns alike!
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