It was a popular and critical success from the beginning, but it does contain some of Puccini's most modern-sounding music and not everyone takes a liking to it the first time around. Emmy Destinn was Minnie and Arturo Toscanini conducted. Dick Johnson was sung by the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso.
Puccini's Fanciulla was premiered in 1910 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, and it was an all-star affair. Puccini was a big fan of Belasco, who also wrote the play that inspired Madame Butterfly, and there's still a Broadway theater bearing Belasco's name. The story is based on an American drama by David Belasco. It's as though an Italian potboiler has somehow landed in Deadwood! Surely, this is the only opera to feature phrases like, "Whiskey per tutti!" and "Hello regazzi," and to have one of its crucial moments decided by, "una partita a poker." In this one, Puccini's signature "verismo" style comes face to face with America's Wild West. Still, Puccini may have outdone himself with La Fanciulla del West - The Girl of the Golden West. The last act of Manon Lescaut takes place on a "vast, arid plain," which somehow turns up on the outskirts of New Orleans.
Madame Butterfly is set in Japan, around 1900. Giacomo Puccini was never shy when it came to writing operas with exotic settings - or at least settings that seemed exotic to European audiences.
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