La fanciulla del West | Giacomo Puccini

The first world premiere ever produced by the Metropolitan Opera took place on December 10, 1910. The opera was Giacomo Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, based on The Girl of the Golden West by American playwright David Belasco, which Puccini saw on Broadway when he visited New York in 1907.

"Signor Puccini has reached a pinnacle such as none of his contemporaries has attained in the United States,” wrote the eminent critic and chronicler of opera history Henry Krehbiel in 1908. For the 1910–11 season, just ten years after his works started to appear at the Met, 37 performances of four Puccini operas were given. Following its star-studded premiere, La Fanciulla del West remained in the repertory for only four seasons but returned in 1929 in a new production that featured soprano Maria Jeritza, tenor Giovanni Martinelli, and baritone Lawrence Tibbett. Subsequent new stagings appeared in 1961 and 1991, and to date, the Met has performed La Fanciulla del West 111 times.