SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Puccini, La fanciulla del West at the Finnish National Opera, Helsinki, 23.8.2008 [GF]

Directed by Vilppu Kiljunen

Sets and costumes: Kimmo Viskari

Lighting design: Ilkka Paloniemi

Cast:

Minnie – Francesca Patanè

Jack Rance – Juha Uusitalo

Dick Johnson / Ramerrez – Mika Pohjonen

Nick – Aki Alamikkotervo

Ashby – Hannu Forsberg

Sonora – Jaako Kortekangas

Trin – Juha Riihimäki

Sid – Niklas Spångberg

Handsome – Jussi Ziegler

Harry – Ari Gröndal

Joe – Jeremias Erkkilå

Happy – Veli-Pekka Väisänen

Larkens – Jukka Romu

Billy Jackrabbit – Robert McLoud

Wowkle – Sari Nordqvist

Jake Wallace – Jari Saarman

José Castro – Kai Valtonen

Postman – Jussi Miilunpalo 

The Finnish National Opera Chorus and Orchestra / Harri Karri

The premiere of La fanciulla del West at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910 was Puccini’s greatest success ever. Arturo Toscanini conducted and the starry cast included Emmy Destinn in the title role and Enrico Caruso as Dick Johnson. Puccini himself took no less than 55 curtain calls. The opera was also well received in Chicago and Boston and the first European productions, in London and Rome, were also praised. But after these initial triumphs interest began to wane and, although being played not infrequently it has never reached the popularity of La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot. I believe Manon Lescaut is also heard more often.

The reason for this relative neglect is probably the lack of arias that people recognize and are able to hum. The tenor’s Ch’ella mi creda from the last act is the only exception but even this aria is less well known than the hit songs from the operas mentioned above. Minnie has a couple of arias and Jack Rance a splendid one and there are a couple of extended love duets but none of these stand out  the way Che gelida manina does; they are integrated in a taut, through-composed structure. Musically La fanciulla is Puccini’s boldest creation so far and it could be argued that it is harmonically even more challenging than Turandot. As in that opera as well as Madama Butterfly he creates local colour by quoting American songs – the origin of the gold-diggers’ chorus is a Stephen Foster song – and Wowkie’s lullaby is based on an Indian melody. From a European point of view this is a kind of reversed exoticism. But by and large the score is typically Puccinian with surging melodies and sweet strings – not unlike film music in fact and there have been many Western films through the years with similar stories but few with music of this stature. Had Puccini been granted another ten years to live he might have become a leading writer of sound-track music.

Incidentally there is also another interesting case of quotation – but the other way around: In the second act, when Minnie and Johnson are together in Minnie’s house and Johnson is invited to stay overnight, sleeping in Minnie’s bed while she naps at the table, there is a short orchestral night music, permeated with yearning; the central phrase appears note by note in Music of the night in Lloyd-Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, whether by coincidence or by design I don’t know but the nocturnal atmosphere is in common.

The libretto is based on a play by David Belasco – as was also Puccini’s previous opera Madama Butterfly – and Belasco was a true man of the theatre, so this opera has high dramatic qualities. It also has a heroine that for once is strong-willed and tough and the sparks fly during the encounters with the sheriff Jack Rance who is a kind of Wild West Scarpia. One could imagine the story to be out of fashion but with two dramatic singers  who are also expressive actors in these roles it can still give rise to a thrilling evening.

Minnie first arrived at the Finnish National Opera in 1937 and in 1971 it was time for a second production. The third production, which is still running, was premiered in November 2001 with Cynthia Makris as Minnie, Juha Uusitalo as Jack Rance and Giuseppe Giacomini as Dick Johnson and Tom Krause, no less, appeared as Jake Wallace. Many of the other members of that cast are still singing their roles in the present revival.

The sets are stylized but realistic. In the second act, playing in Minnie’s house, the front and back walls are removed so we can see what happens in the house as well as behind it. The primitive environment and cold atmosphere is well depicted in rather drab colours. The direction and costume design make the most of the individual characters among the gold-diggers and the whole opera seethes with life. As is often the case in Puccini’s operas there are small secondary plots creating a sense of real life and it has to be said that the many actors in the minor roles did a fine job this evening.

Mikko Franck, Artistic Director and General Music Director ot the Finnish National Opera, was scheduled to conduct the performance but he had to cancel at very short notice due to illness and in his place Harri Karri stood in with credit.

The gold-diggers were a motley crowd where Hannu Forsberg’s sonorous Ashby and Jaakko Kortekangas’s Sonora stood out. Aki Alamikkotervo has quickly risen to one of the leading character tenors in the house and his Nick was well chiselled out. But head and shoulders above the rest, vocally as well as physically, towered Juha Uusitalo as a loathsome Jack Rance. He is a splendid actor and he employs his tremendous voice with the utmost sophistication. More is not necessarily better, seems to be his maxim and just as his Scarpia some years ago became only the more terrible through his scaling down, the sheriff’s evil became so much more frightening when he sometimes resorted to near-whispers, saving his booming fortissimo for the climaxes. This man is a phenomenon.

Less than a year ago I was quite bowled over by Francesca Patané’s Tosca on a DVD, filmed at Bari in 2001 (review). I described her then as Callas-like – vocally – and a superb actress. This was confirmed with knobs on in Helsinki: good-looking with a well-shaped body cut out for appearing in underwear in the second act – the underwear of 1850s California was of course on the large side compared to today’s minimal outfits – and with an intensity in singing and acting that was quite overwhelming. For vocal security and beauty of tone she surpassed Callas by a mile, her ringing rock-steady top notes hurled out with impressive power.

Mika Pohjonen’s Dick Johnson wasn’t quite in this class. His somewhat jovial appearance struck a discordant note with the bandit he was to personify and he wasn’t the liveliest of actors. His voice, rather baritonal with a timbre distantly reminiscent of Domingo’s, had a good ring at the top but he was swamped by the orchestra at the climax of his second act aria – more Puccini’s fault, though, than Maestro Karri’s. He did however deliver a full-throated Ch’ella mi creda, secure but rather monochrome.

For once there was a happy end in a Puccini opera but up till that turning-point we experienced a hair-raising thriller that didn’t feel in the least dusty.

Göran Forsling

Photos © Heikki Tuuli