On this day in 1961 the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with La fanciulla del West starring Leontyne Price, Richard Tucker and Anselmo Colzani. 

Leighton Kerner in The Village Voice:

…You may walk into a performance of Puccini’s “La Fanciulla del West,” (the urtext-after the fact-of David Belasco’s “The Girl of the Golden West”) prepared to jeer at the idea of a bunch of “ragazzi” stepping up to the bar in Minnie’s (Miss Price’s) saloon and ordering “whiskey per tutti,” or at the thought of Richard Tucker, as a bandit, entering Minnie’s cabin with a “Hello” and being greeted with a “Buona sera,” but the five minutes after the first-act curtain has been raised, a blind belief sets in, and Puccini shoves Hart Crane and Zane Grey and the others off the shelf.

Much of this conviction was due the other night to Miss Price, who not only acts with her resplendent near-dramatic soprano voice, but with her whole being, and to Italian baritone Anselmo Colzani as Sheriff Jack Rance, who made the most florid gesture seem the most natural and who, for the first time, earns the right to be considered a star in his own right and not just a utilitarian replacement made use of because Leonard Warren is no longer around. Richard Tucker, who makes no pretense at being an actor, sang like the supreme tenor he is and seemed pretty much swept into the emotional current by his colleagues.

The score has been much reviled and, if you consider the heavy re-use of the “Butterfly”-“Tosca” style and occasional re-use of melodies from these two operas, carping may not be out of place. But, there is much in this work that is unlike any other Puccini, both in musical interest and genuine theatrical punch, notably in the scene where Minnie cheats Rance at poker to save the bandit’s life. Positively bloodcurdling!

Happy 95th birthday composer Ned Rorem.