Here is my Monday January 24 suntimes.com and Chicago Sun-Times review of the Saturday January 22, 2011 opening night of Lyric Opera of Chicago's revival of Puccini's La fanciulla del West.
Soprano Deborah Voigt sings the title role of Minnie in The Girl of the Golden West at the Civic Opera House. | Al Podgorski~Sun-Times
‘Golden’ opportunity to see a gem
By ANDREW PATNER
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Repeats this Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and then six more matinée and evening performances through February 21.
In the 100 years and one month since its world premiere at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Puccini’s La fanciulla del West ("The Girl of the Golden West") hasn’t achieved the audience success of La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, or Turandot. And it certainly lacks the major arias, drama, and even the melodrama of these repertory staples. But it’s the composer’s most adventurous and involving score and a work filled with psychological insight and very real characters. When given the cast and production of Saturday night’s opening at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the fervent and penetrating performance that Andrew Davis led from the Lyric Orchestra, the result is a not-to-be-missed presentation at the Civic Opera House.
In addition to being through-composed -- following Wagner, Debussy and Richard Strauss -- rather than having set pieces for singers, the three-act Girl also has met with resistance because of the absurdity for many viewers of seeing a stage filled with 1849 California Gold Rush miners singing in Italian about how much they miss their “mammas.” As this objection doesn’t come up often with starving Parisian artists, an abandoned Japanese girl in Nagasaki, or an international crowd of dignitaries in a Chinese court, let’s just suspend our disbelief and take Fanciulla as what it is: a love letter to America, a celebration of a non-hysterical, heroic woman, and a paean to a very adult idea of love and companionship.
This has been soprano Deborah Voigt’s year for singing and playing Minnie, the saloonkeeping young woman of the title. The Illinois native made her role début in San Francisco last summer and comes immediately off of the centennial run of the work at the Met. And if this third major Minnie were not enough, she’ll continue the independent Western gal theme as Annie Oakley in Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun at Glimmerglass Opera in New York State this summer. The much-loved Voigt has been subject to criticism since undergoing successful weight-loss surgery several years ago, with some saying the procedure has affected the power and even character of her voice. I’m sitting out that dispute. Whatever the cause of some constriction in her voice on Saturday (perhaps a cold?), her absolute characterization and conviction as Minnie were equally commanding and inviting. This is a heart-of-gold woman who can use a six-shooter and keep a man’s world of miners in line, but one who also itches for love and even book learning.
Sicilian tenor Marcello Giordani long has been seen as a might-have-been singer outside of his home at the Met. Those doubts, too, fade away with his role as “Dick Johnson of Sacramento,” the alias used by the unhappily hereditary bandit Ramerrez who comes to Minnie’s Polka saloon in search of stored gold but instead is smitten with the proprietress and she with him after recalling a previous chance meeting. Minnie and “Dick’s” duet “Mister Johnson, siete rimasto indietro” finds Voigt and Giordani well-matched vocally, physically, and emotionally, and this chemistry carries over through the next two acts. (Sadly, the beauty of this music was not lost on Andrew Lloyd Webber, and his “inspiration” from it in The Phantom of the Opera retrospectively haunts Puccini’s score.)
Northern Italian baritone Marco Vratogna makes a major role and house début here as the “sceriffo,” Jack Rance. As with the lovers so filled with self-doubt, Rance is no pure villain, and Vratogna both got his lawman’s character and earned the loudest and longest ovation on opening night with a strong and individual sound. Lyric stalwart comprimario tenor David Cangelosi is at his best as the bartender, Nick. The large American supporting cast is young (many are Ryan Center members) and strong across the board. Space allows mention only of baritone Daniel Sutin as Minnie’s true friend Sonora, bass-baritone Craig Irvin as Ashby, the Wells Fargo man; bass-baritone Paul Corona as the minstrel Jake Wallace who sings a Zuni Indian ballad, mezzo Katherine Lerner as Minnie’s Indian helper Wowkle, and bass Evan Boyer as Wowkle’s boyfriend Billy Jackrabbit.
Director Vincent Liotta superbly reanimates the decades-old Harold Prince production along with updating by Scott Marr of the original Eugene and Franne Lee sets and costumes and fresh lighting from Jason Brown. But in addition to Voigt, it is really Davis and the orchestra and Donald Nally and the men of the Lyric Chorus who make this relative rarity soar. Atmosphere becomes feeling and characters become universal in their hands.
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