When Maria Jeritza first came to the U. S. one of her great enthusiasms was for Wild West cinemas. In Vienna, Jeritza's home, one of her most successful roles is Puccini's Girl of the Golden West. What more natural, despite the fact that the opera failed miserably when given in Manhattan with Emmy Destinn and Enrico Caruso in 1910, than that Jeritza should want to give her version in Manhattan, that General Manager Giulio Gatti-Casazza should bill it as the first revival of the new season.
A barmaid named Minnie is heroine of the David Belasco play which Puccini adapted. She keeps a saloon in a California mining camp, reads the Bible to drunkards, guards their money. Among them is Sheriff Jack Rance. He loves her, but Minnie, by the end of the first act, prefers Dick Johnson, outlaw in disguise. Rance obtains proof that Johnson is the bandit Ramarrez and tells Minnie. The big scene occurs when she confronts Johnson with her knowledge and drives him out into the storm. He is wounded just outside the door and she drags him in again and hides him. A drop of blood reveals his presence to Rance. Then Minnie and Rance play poker for the life of the wounded bandit. Minnie cheats and wins. But in the last act Rance cheats too. So that Johnson is captured and is about to be lynched when Minnie dashes up on horseback, pleads for him so tenderly that they are allowed to set out together toward a better life.
At the premiere of this vigorous, ethical tale 19 years ago. Composer Puccini and Author Belasco were both present. Puccini was awarded an eight-foot wreath, Belasco was "divinely happy." Yet he declared he was happier last week. Jeritza and he took a dozen bows together. He kissed her hand. She kissed his cheek. The other players did not count. As Forty-Niners they were patently masquerading. Tenor Giovanni Martinelli (Dick Johnson) had suffered and sobbed in the best Italian manner. Baritone Lawrence Tibbett (Jack Rance) was more credible, but looked funny in an Abraham Lincoln makeup. It was Jeritza who raised the performance above incongruity, saved the plot from appearing like any cinematic melodrama. She made comedy in the first act out of dishwashing, in the second out of tight slippers and a "company" costume. Then when the card scene came she loosed the energy which makes her Tosca famed and, despite Puccini's feeble music, created ten tremendous breathtaking minutes. The third act was noteworthy only for the sight of a soprano outshining a tenor on horseback.