Turin, Teatro Regio, Opera and ballet season 2023-2024
“THE MAID OF THE WEST”
ORpear in three acts with a libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, from the drama “The Girl of the Golden West” by David Belasco.
Music by Giacomo Puccini
Minnie OKSANA DIKA
Jack Rance MASSIMO CAVALLETTI
Dick Johnson AMADI LAGHA
Nick FRANCESCO PITTARI
Ashby PAOLO BATTAGLIA
Sound FILIPPO MORACE
Trin CRISTIANO OLIVIERI
Sid / Billy Jackrabbit EDUARDO MARTÍNEZ
Bello and Harry ALESSIO VERNA
Joe ENRICO MARIA PIAZZA
Happy GIUSEPPE ESPOSITO
Larkens TYLER ZIMMERMAN
Wowkle KSENIA CHUBUNOVA
Jake Wallace GUSTAVO CASTILLO
Jose Castro ADRIANO GRAMIGNI
A postillion ALEJANDRO ESCOBAR
Orchestra and Choir Teatro Regio Torino
Director Francesco Ivan Ciampa
Choir master Ulysses Trabacchin
Direction Valentina Carrasco
Scenes Carles Berga And Peter van Praet
Costumes Silvia Aymonino
Lights Peter van Praet
New staging of Teatro Regio Torino
Turin, 23 March 2024 (second performance)
West girl, MET 1910; 6 years have passed since the Madama Butterfly which precedes it, an anomalous interval compared to the 3, 4 years that separated all the other works from Lucca. Furthermore, in the meantime, Salome and Elektra in 1909 had already defeated the field in 1906 and Richard Strauss thus forcefully revived an operatic Wagnerism that was still on the alert and shocked the European opera scene. Puccini and his tearful melodism therefore find themselves in a corner, thus the need arises to look for an escape route which, while not betraying the sentimental side, is not excessively entangled in it. With Girl Puccini tries to free himself and, for the most part, succeeds. The MET’s request to write an American Western, populated by a crowd of poor misfits, provides him with the opportunity he was looking for. The distant mother, the Soledad of the memory, the illness and the imagined little sister Maud at her bedside, the robberies due to the need to help a widowed mother and hungry little brothers leave him space for captivating, deliberate melodies intentionally short-lived but suggestive, Puccini-style, they hit the mark. Their melancholy pathos is then set in a very extensive and disenchanted conversation song, a compromise between the cantabile and the dialogue recitative, which is a specificity of Puccini and which no one has ever managed to equal and which takes us back to the ancestral Tuscan-Florentine origins of ‘Opera. The three protagonists, baritone tenor and soprano, act within these patterns and are, due to the fatigue of the part, the ones who alternate, here at the Regio in the close sequence of performances. Massimo Cavalletti, the sheriff Jack Rance, a jealous lover, has a very charming baritone. Puccini’s short melodic arcs, hasty tempos and robust sounds come to his aid. Francesco Ivan Ciampa to overcome some slightly “crushed” high notes and a bound which at times sounds discontinuous. However, the result is a very well-drawn and convincing character also thanks to completely appropriate acting and character. Amadi Lagha, a young French-Tunisian tenor, is Dick Johnson, a Zorro-style bandit who has recently come of age but still maintains the awkwardness and naivety that characterize youth. His bright and clear tone, from the first entry, creates empathy. His high notes will never give rise to legends of tinkling chandeliers, as it was for Caruso, the creator of the part, but they are correct and spontaneous. The “let her believe me”, it comes out passionate and convincing, even if not applauded, not due to the tenor’s demerit but due to the director’s hasty restart which leaves no spaces. In Lagha, given the quality of the timbre and the gentle delivery, characters such as Rodolfo, Ruggero and Rinuccio would perhaps be more suitable, to remain Puccini, rather than the heroically, traditionally bandit, Dick Johnson. Minnie anticipates Turandot or inherits Mimì? The dilemma is not as trivial as it might seem, in fact if down there in Soledad echoes the they call me Mimi, in the snatches of the finale, before the soft final duet with choir, it seems like we are listening to the Princess of the Severed Heads. In her intentions, regardless of her current vocal situation, Oksana Dika makes the choice of heroic line prevail: Brunhilde, Elektra, Turandot. She could equally win the poker game with the feminine charm that conquers Rance, thus avoiding the heartbreaking screams. The excessive shouting
with which, in the third act, he blocks Dick’s hanging, is an effective and explicit reference to hoiohto of the walkiria. For her too, as for the baritone, the short melodic arcs, the hasty tempos and the orchestral clangor prove to be providential, helping her to overcome the sporadic uncertainties in the tied, the tightness of the winds in the relaxed phrasing and the fixity of some rising notes. The complexes, Choir and Orchestra of the Teatro Regio of Turin, and the remaining artists, the fixed cast of all performances of the production, were excellent and rightly rewarded by the public’s approval. The room, almost full in the performance on Saturday afternoon, gave everyone a good amount of final applause enough to confirm a convinced success, without hesitation.
