The Girl of the Golden West

by David Belasco

A title by David Belasco who was an American playwright, director and theatrical producer. During his long career between 1884 and 1930, Belasco either wrote, directed, or produced more than 100 Broadway plays including Hearts of Oak (1879), The Heart of Maryland (1895), and Du Barry (1901), making him the most powerful personality on the New York city theater scene. Although he is perhaps most famous for having penned Madame Butterfly (1900) and The Girl of the Golden West (1911) for the stage, both of which were adapted as operas by Giacomo Puccini, more than forty motion pictures have been made from the many plays he authored, including Buster Keaton's Seven Chances.

Genres: Classics, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Plays

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1911

About the author

David Belasco, known American producer and director, owned a number of theaters with realistic stage settings and innovative lighting effects and wrote and performed his best plays, such as The Girl of the Golden West in 1905.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_B...

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

What fun! I picked this up to prepare for my night at the opera...Puccini's La Funiculla del West, and I enjoyed both thoroughly. So, if you enjoy westerns, strong capable women, and romance...this is the escape for you. A great winter read!

[Ernest Hogan]

A romantic precursor to the western genre, novelized from a play that was made into an Italian opera -- the first spaghetti western? The Girl (who is called that even after we are told her name) falls in love with a "greaser" in strange, exotic California.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

The language and writing style is hard to follow at times, but the story of Minnie is not your usual love story. It's the west, but she is not a damsel in distress. Instead, she's the strong character, and she ends up rescuing the man she loves. The opera is most enjoyable, and I highly recommend viewing a performance of it.

[Giff Blaylock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun tale - loved the detail in even the minor characters.

[Lynette Nickel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like heroes to be loyal, male characters to act normal, heroines to use what brains they have. This story did not meet the criteria in any of these points.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Minnie Falconer, called exclusively "the Girl" by the rough men who all adore her at the Polka Dot Saloon she owns in pre-federated California, falls in love with a mixed race Mexican named Ramerrez, only to discover that he is bandit and sworn enemy of America.

The first scene in the Polka Dot is lively and something of a forerunner for similar scenes in a hundred lighthearted Westerns to follow - lusty voices belting out 'Camptown Races', disagreements at the faro table, shots ringing out left and right that none of the customers seem to take any notice of except the barkeep - you've seen that movie before I'm sure.

You expect "the Girl" to sashay into this like some kind of forerunner to Mae West, chewing up the men and the scenery with equal aplomb. Clearly she is meant to, yet the author can't pull it off, the dialogue he gives her wouldn't tame a frightened kitten and at no stage do you see how she could run a frontier saloon on her own amongst rowdy, dangerous men.

The Girl of the Golden West was originally a successful Broadway play and the characters often talk in theatrical asides as though they were still on a stage, as though the author forgot that he was writing a novelization.

With this dialogue he needn't have bothered. The love scenes between the Girl and Ramerrez are ineffably sappy and banal, bordering on the cretinous at times. How the hell did theatre audiences like this tosh? At one stage they actually have this classically idiotic exchange:
"You did."
"Didn't!"
"You did."
"Didn't! Didn't!"

They did.

More amazingly still, Puccini made an opera out of this! Having also read the novella from which Madame Butterfly was inspired I can only conclude that old Giacomo dedicated himself to proving that you can turn even the flimsiest material into fine art.

[Opera Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Girl of the Golden West is a theatrical play written by American author David Belasco. The four-act melodrama opened at the old Belasco Theatre in New York on November 14, 1905 and ran for 224 performances. The play toured throughout the US for several years and has been adapted numerous times, most notably as the 1910 opera by Puccini. It was also made into four films, all titled The Girl of the Golden West, in 1915, 1923, 1930 and 1938. Belasco wrote a novel based on the play in 1911, and is the author of the short story Madame Butterfly on which Puccini based his famous opera. - Maestro Jim Meena