[Met Performance] CID:306170

New Production

La Fanciulla del West
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, October 10, 1991

Debut : Leonard Slatkin, Perry Ward, Kim Josephson, Hao Jiang Tian, Giancarlo Del Monaco, Michael Scott




La Fanciulla del West (76)
Giacomo Puccini | Guelfo Civinini/Carlo Zangarini
Minnie
Barbara Daniels

Dick Johnson
Plácido Domingo

Jack Rance
Sherrill Milnes

Joe
Michael Forest

Handsome
Richard Vernon

Harry
Bernard Fitch

Happy
Kevin Short

Sid
Perry Ward [Debut]

Sonora
Bruno Pola

Trin
Charles Anthony

Jim Larkens
Kim Josephson [Debut]

Nick
Anthony Laciura

Jake Wallace
Terry Cook

Ashby
Julien Robbins

Post Rider
Michael Best

Castro
Vernon Hartman

Billy Jackrabbit
Hao Jiang Tian [Debut]

Wowkle
Sondra Kelly


Conductor
Leonard Slatkin [Debut]


Production
Giancarlo Del Monaco [Debut]

Designer
Michael Scott [Debut]

Lighting Designer
Gil Wechsler





La Fanciulla del West received twelve performances this season.

FUNDING:
Production a gift of Mrs. Donald D. Harrington

Review 1:

Manuela Hoelterhoff in the Wall Street Journal
Golden Girl

After all, it can still pull off a production all on its own, and for proof we had the perfectly splendid-looking "La Fanciulla del West." Now that was an evening in which the pennies turned to gold. In sympathetic hands, Puccini's cornball opera about lonesome miners in the Wild West can be amusing entertainment, and so it was in this attractively spacious, unpretentious staging by Giancarlo del Monaco and his designer, Michael Scott. They were both making their debuts, along with the invigoratingly enthusiastic conductor, Leonard Slatkin. Their arrival at the Met is cause for hope.


Mr. del Monaco is the son of the tenor Mario del Monaco, whose thrilling Dick Johnson is preserved on Decca/London with Renata Tebaldi's appealing Minnie. Minnie runs the Polka Saloon, a rather large establishment in this production. But Mr. del Monaco used it imaginatively to showcase the miners who gather here to weep, drink, gawk at Minnie and hit each other over the head. All lost souls, their small stories were heightened by the vastness of the West we glimpsed through the saloon's open doors, the little snow-chilled but hacked out of immense pine trees where Minnie bravely entertains her bandit, and the loneliness of the last act's ghost town.


It is all as beguiling as this flawed opera with its endless first act can possibly be without a charming Minnie. Nudged, I would assume, by the director in his one major miscalculation, the likable Barbara Daniels assumed a coy persona as ill-fitting to her generous size as those bosom-hugging costumes. But in the end, it was the musical role that didn't fit. Struggling to fill out Minnie's big vocal moments, Ms. Daniels had little left over to mold her endearingly dumb lines in the manner of the fondly remembered Tebaldi.


But better companions no Minnie could ask for. Eye-catching in his bandit's long coat, more engaged than often, Placido Domingo was an ideal Dick Johnson, introspective but dashing too, and vocally unstinting. He shared the evening with Sherrill Milnes, whose brooding, dapper "sheriffo" was the most compelling performance the baritone has offered in quite some time.



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