![]() In the Tuscan village of Torre del Lago, where he lived with his wife, Elvira, and their son, Antonio, Puccini’s young maid had committed suicide after his wife accused her of having an affair with her husband (an autopsy soon revealed she was, in fact, a virgin). It had been a tumultuous year leading up to the premiere performance of the first Puccini opera to have its world debut in America. Its three tiers of private boxes arranged in a horseshoe shape would likely be filled with Roosevelts, Vanderbilts, Astors, and sitting squarely in the center in box 35 - the space reserved for royalty in European theaters - the J.P. The world premiere of his latest opera, The Girl of the Golden West, which, like the megahit before it, Madama Butterfly, was based on a popular play by American David Belasco, would be performed for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera House at 39th Street and Broadway in a few weeks. On Wednesday, November 16, 1910, the famed Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, 51, walked down the long gangplank that stretched from the German-built luxury ocean liner SS George Washington onto the shores of New York. ![]() ![]() ![]() Where does opera meet the Wild West? In the Gold Rush-era La fanciulla del West, which had its guns-blazing world premiere in New York 108 years ago and is on the stage again there this October. ![]()
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