Autograph sketchleaf for La Fanciulla del West, [c.1908-9]

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Autograph sketchleaf for La Fanciulla del West, [c.1908-9]
An early draft for the duet between Minnie and Dick Johnson at the end of Act One of La Fanciulla del West.

In pencil, with the title 'oro barile' [barrel of gold] added in pen, 2 pages, 375 x 270mm, in short score, 10 bars in five systems of two or three staves. Blue cloth portfolio.

Provenance:
(1) Sotheby's, 9 June 2010, lot 71.

(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 5447.

The title 'oro barile' refers to the keg of gold concealed at Minnie's saloon bar and which she and the miners guard at night: Minnie shows it to Dick Johnson at the beginning of their Act One duet, in which they declare their love for each other. The sketchleaf is a very preliminary version of the orchestral introduction to their duet, initially in 4/4 and from bar 7 in 6/4.

La fanciulla del West, based on the 1905 play The Girl of the Golden West by David Belasco, was a commission by the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and was in fact the first world premiere of an opera at the Met. The first performance on 10 December 1910, conducted by Arturo Toscanini and with Enrico Caruso in the role of Dick Johnson, was received with enormous enthusiasm, and Puccini himself considered the work to be his greatest composition, but the critical response was more ambivalent, focusing on the lack of veracity in Puccini's portrayal of the American West during the Gold Rush.