Puccini of the Golden West

Most of the thousands who made their fortunes from the California gold fields were miners. One was an opera composer. His name–Giacomo Puccini.

Puccini struck his gold without so much as lifting a shovel. [He had been down on his luck. In 1904 his opera Madama Butterfly had premiered at La Scala in Milan. The audience responded with “roars, laughter, bellowing, and guffaws.” It was almost impossible to hear the music, and shouts and jeers drowned any applause out. Puccini himself described the premiere as “a real lynching,”]

During a visit to New York in 1907 he saw a play by David Belasco, set in the rough-and-tumble of the California gold rush. It told the story of Minnie and her devotion to the outlaw Johnson, whom she saves from hanging when she appeals to the miners to free him.

Puccini had his doubts about the play, but he was drawn to the subject of the American West. In 1890 Buffalo Bill Cody had brought his Wild West Show to Italy, and Puccini had joined the throngs eager to see rope-throwing cowboys and hard-riding Indians. Their splendid sharpshooting and authentic scenes of the frontier particularly impressed the composer.

Puccini set his doubts aside and based his new opera on Belasco’s play–The Girl of the Golden West. But finding a librettist took some doing. Puccini began with Carlo Zangarini, who was fluent in English but not sufficiently poetic. And Puccini had to resort to an attorney to convince Zangarini to work with a collaborator, poet, Guelio Civinnini. In the long run, Puccini wound up doing most of the writing himself.

It worked. One witness to the New York premiere of December 10th, 1907, reported that the audience clapped, stomped, shouted and called for encores. Puccini counted fifty-five curtain calls, about thirty of which seemed to be for him personally, as he stood onstage surrounded by the cast and joined by conductor Arturo Toscanini.

In addition to showering him with accolades, the opera made Puccini rich. According to a phrase common at the time, The Girl of the Golden West turned out to be Puccini’s California gold mine