It had been a tumultuous year leading up to the premiere performance of the first Puccini opera to have its world debut in America. Its three tiers of private boxes arranged in a horseshoe shape would likely be filled with Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, Astors, and sitting squarely in the center in box 35 - the space reserved for royalty in European theaters - the J.P. The world premiere of his latest opera, The Girl of the Golden West, which, like the megahit before it, Madama Butterfly, was based on a popular play by American David Belasco, would be performed for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera House at 39th Street and Broadway in a few weeks. On Wednesday, November 16, 1910, the famed Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, 51, walked down the long gangplank that stretched from the German-built luxury ocean liner SS George Washington onto the shores of New York. Where does opera meet the Wild West? In the Gold Rush-era La fanciulla del West, which had its guns-blazing world premiere in New York 108 years ago and is on the stage again there this October.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |