Virginia Opera: The Girl of the Golden West

December 2, 2017 at 8:00 pm
December 3, 2017 at 2:00 pm

Virginia Opera continues its season with Giacomo Puccini’s magnum opus, The Girl of the Golden West (La fanciulla del West), considered the first “spaghetti western.” Set during the California Gold Rush of 1849, this Italian opera is Puccini’s take on the rough and tough Wild West and features familiar themes of unrequited love, jealousy, betrayal, redemption, and changing fate. The story follows Minnie, a gun toting saloon owner of the Polka Saloon. Minnie is the object of desire for all of the whiskey-guzzling and card-playing patrons of her establishment, but Minnie rebuffs the cowboys and gold-diggers and instead falls head over heels for a mysterious stranger who might just be a wanted highway bandit in disguise. This thrilling Western melodrama is vividly brought to life under the direction of Virginia Opera’s beloved Lillian Groag. Sung in Italian with English supertitles.

Individual tickets go on sale August 1.