David Belasco's three-act melodrama, which opened on 14 November 1905 at the Belasco Theatre for 224 performances, became the first American play to be converted into a grand opera when Giacomo Puccini's La Fanciulla del West opened at the Metropolitan Opera House on 10 December 1910. The enduring popularity of the opera ultimately submerged the source play, but not before Belasco exploited it through his characteristic use of visual realism in scenes depicting sunsets, snowstorms, and an impressive opening sequence in which a panorama moves vertically to take the audience from the heroine's cabin in the mountains down to the entrance of the saloon in town. Blanche Bates starred as The Girl (whose name turns out to be Minnie) and played return engagements of the play in 1907 and 1908.
The Girl of the Golden West is set in a California mining camp. The Girl falls in love with Dick Johnson, who turns out to be Ramirez, a bandit hunted by Sheriff Jack Rance. She hides the wounded Dick in her loft, but his blood drips through a crack in the ceiling while Rance is there. Rance wants The Girl for himself (although he has a wife elsewhere). He agrees to play a hand of poker with the Girl to decide the presumed outlaw's fate. The Girl wins by cheating. Back at the saloon, the locals still want to hang Dick, but he and the Girl get away and together face the eastern sunrise. Several motion picture versions were released (1915, 1923, 1930), as well as a version combining Belasco's play with music from Puccini's opera in 1938.
See also Frontier drama.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.