Photo © Clarchen & Matthias Baus
Puccini’s La fanciulla del West is available on Blu-ray for the first time ever – brought to life in typically spectacular fashion by De Nederlandse Opera.
Puccini’s version of the spaghetti western was set amongst a mining settlement in Gold Rush era California. This classic tale of a love triangle has a Hollywood-worthy happy ending, and director Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s vision transposes the action to Wall Street, the cathedral of Capitalism, giving the opera a cinematic quality all of his own.
This DNO production boasts Eva-Maria Westbroek as Minnie, a part the Dutch soprano described as her ‘dream role’. Fans of Westbroek are eagerly awaiting her creation of the eponymous title role in Anna Nicole: The Opera, in February 2011 at the Royal Opera House, London. Based upon the life of controversial stripper-turned-billionaire’s-wife Anna Nicole Smith, Anna Nicole is a venture from Olivier award-winning composer Mark Anthony Turnage and searingly witty librettist Richard Thomas and is sure to be extraordinary.
La fanciulla del West also stars Italian baritone Lucio Gallo as Jack Rance, one of the two men battling for Minnie’s affections, alongside tenor Zoran Todorovich as his rival, Dick Johnson.
Extra features on the DVD/Blu-ray include a cast gallery and a documentary about Eva-Maria Westbroek, alongside the opera that the New York Times called ‘spirited and inventive’.