PUCCINI: La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) – Blu-ray

PUCCINI: La fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) (complete opera), Blu-ray (2010) 
Performers: Eva-Maria Westbroek (Minnie)/ Lucio Gallo (Jack Rance)/ Zoron Todorovich (Dick Johnson)
Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus/ Carlo Rizzi
Director: Nikolaus Lehnhoff
Studio: Opus Arte BD 7075 [Distr. by Naxos]
Video: 16:9 1080i Full HD Color
Audio: Italian DTS-HD 5.0, PCM Stereo 2.0
Subtitles: German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch
Extras: Cast Gallery; Backstage Insights
Length: 159 minutes
Rating: ***1/2
Puccini’s 1910 creation that attempts  to set itself in the American West, written for the Metropolitan Opera and conducted by none other than Toscanini, with a winning cast of Caruso and Emmy Destinn, started off life on a happy note—people actually liked it, and liked it a lot. This was not to last—the public came to their senses, and The Girl of the Golden West has remained on the outer edges of the repertory ever since. This production seems designed to do two things—take our minds off the vapidity of much of the music by flashing us with Hollywood-style gaudiness, and poking fun at the supposed money-mad culture of the United States.
The old West has little to do with it besides the caricatured Snidely Whiplash looks of Sheriff Jack Rance, while anti-hero Dick Johnson looks every bit the part of any number of early silent Western film stars. Minnie herself, noble throughout, loses a little of her virginal character (quite literally in this opera—she’s never been kissed) in the last act when she is dressed glamorously as a Jean Harlow platinum-blonde type. All three of the singers portraying the stars are uniformly excellent, Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Minnie especially notable for her wide range and highly-expressive vocal timbres.
But the music is nothing to write home about, degenerating in the last act to the worst kind of Hollywood-schlock that meanders and treads water. Somehow through all of this the characters, which—despite the trite and ridiculous story line—still manage to carve out some fairly well-defined personalities. It is this which ultimately saves the piece, though Puccini’s attempt at composing some more “modern” music (even though he was far more modern in pieces like Tosca and Turandot) meant that he abandoned being true to himself and allowed his innate sense of melody to be put in check. Nonetheless, there are some long lines and powerful sweeping moments of great beauty.
The sets are odd; Act 1 looks for the entire world like a scene from Police Academy where two of the stars walk into a gay biker bar. The leather outfits are a little hard to take, and though some instance of parody is intended (at least for a European audience), an American will find it way over the top. Likewise the Act II scene in Minnie’s habitat—all brightly lit neon hot pink, making us wonder if this is a house of prostitution instead of the house of a pious woman. (She gets her first kiss here—loss of virginity, so to speak?) But the third act—by far the most flamboyant and colorful—brings out Hollywood in all its 1920s glory, complete with a huge superimposed MGM lion—roaring at that. It is distracting—though the audience applauds wildly—but considering the happy-go-lucky happy ending, perhaps it is apropos after all.
There are other productions of a more traditional nature that might appeal more to someone just coming to this work, especially the Slatkin/Metropolitan Opera DVD. This release is primarily for the vocals, especially Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Minnie, maybe the best on video. Perhaps this should have been audio-only, I don’t know. If you want a beautifully sung performance on video, this will do. If you want a more coherent production, look to Slatkin.
—Steven Ritter