Conductor Emmanuel Villaume brought out Puccini’s innovations and, with his complete command of Santa Fe Opera’s superb orchestra, he insured the unhindered flow of each of scene. Puccini used these sonorities in an impressionistic manner that brings to mind music of Maurice Ravel, Richard Strauss, and even, at times, Claude Debussy. Puccini uses folk songs, Spanish rhythms and Native American chants that relate to the culture of the opera's setting. Conductor Arturo Toscanini called it a 'great symphonic poem'. Calling for a large orchestra, Puccini’s wrote Fanciulla in a symphonic style. Stage Director Jones and Choreographer Lucy Burge created an interesting scene in the first act that showed miners learning to dance.Īmong Puccini operas, Fanciulla relates to Madama Butterfly and Turandot. Almost everyone wore a holster with a gun in it. The men wore an assortment of pants that included jeans. Nicky Gillibrand’s costumes did not nail down the period to a specific decade, but Minnie wore ankle length dresses and boots that related tangentially to the California Gold Rush, and her Native American servant also wore a long cloth dress.

The action required a hanging tree, but the rope for Dick Johnson's execution appeared magically from somewhere up in the sky. The Marshall’s Outpost was a much larger building, but it was mainly needed as a backdrop. Minnie’s cabin, too, was smaller and simpler than necessary but it provided the basics. There were rooms on either side of the bar, but the partitions only added to the aura of confinement. The building did not take up more than a third of the stage and it was hard to fit both soloists and chorus inside. Minnie’s Polka Saloon was a tiny shack outlined and lit by neon, suggesting the availability of electricity. Miriam Buether’s sets broke the stage up into cramped rooms.

Santa Fe Opera has an open backed stage that can show the setting sun over the Jemez Mountains as the show opens, but unfortunately, director Richard Jones did not make use of the advantages the New Mexico city had over London and the result was a horseless “Western” that never showed any of the country’s natural beauty. Santa Fe Opera presented the same production of Giacomo Puccini’s La fanciulla del West ( The Girl of the Golden West) that English National Opera staged at the London Coliseum.

Santa fe opera 2016