Larkens: The1910 premiere and subsequent performances saw the French baritone Bernard Bégué, who sang mostly very small roles, but with enough heft to be a frequent Lo Zio Bonzo in Butterfly. 1929 brought Millo Picco, about whom I can’t offer anything. He’s on a couple of the earliest Met aircheck recordings, but not in a capacity that entitles us to characterize his voice. In the ’60s, the part was taken by Theodor Uppman, a high, heady baritone whose amplitude might surprise you—the original Billy Budd, a very good Pelléas, fixture in Mozart roles (Papageno, Guglielmo, Masetto). Now: Adrian Timpau, of whom, a week after the fact, I can’t call up any impression, positive or negative.

Yes, this is definitely a Good Old Days lament. And yes, we’ve been lamenting like this for several generations. That’s not because every generation does that, so no worries, it doesn’t mean a thing, but because every generation we can get a handle on has been correct. We see in the casting of these supporting parts the same decline in vocal presence and profile we also see in that of the leading roles. I can vouch for that in an in-the-theatre sense only back to the ’60s, but familiarity with recordings, casting assignments, and commentary will carry us back through better to better-yet to best with good confidence. And the point is not to berate today’s professionals for who they aren’t, but to help explain how what may seem an insurmountable obstacle to enjoyment in the opera itself has been less of one in the past. The first half of Act 1 of Fanciulla does present its difficulties. But Puccini wrote it in justified expectation of greater riches at his disposal.

Fanciulla being an exercise in operatic realism, there’s another route open to fulfillment, and that would be through far sharper definition in physical characterization. Belasco’s own work with the Met’s singers was said to have resulted in an unprecedented level of individuation and believability among them. I doubt that this is achievable in the context of a repertory revival, or even in a well-rehearsed new production amid repertory demands. Too much depends on training and rehearsal habits, and on an aspiration to the far more vividly theatricalized kind of “operatic realism” that Belasco and Puccini were seeking—a kind that aimed for the the new verisimilitudinous style while remaining informed by the heightened rhetorics of voice and body derived from the old. That would require a different kind of ensemble, a different way of working. And a director of Belasco-like reputation and authority.

Before the modern acting sensibility began to take hold, the search for theatrical verisimilitude had begun with close attention to lifelike detail in set, property, and costume design, most often with the meticulous reconstruction of a historical or legendary time and place as the goal. (And Fanciulla, like all Puccini’s operas save Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica, was at the time of its composition already a “period piece.” Those “halcyon days of ’49” were sixty years gone.) That is still how “realism” or “traditional style” is spoken of in day-to-day opera criticism—in terms of design, more than of character behavior. (In her book, Marker recounts how much stress Belasco put—and here he truly sounds like a Stanislavskian—on the interrelationship of the two, the effect of a lifelike physical environment and the authenticity of props on not only the audience, but the actors. “If the actors are thoroughly steeped in the atmosphere, they will radiate it,” he said. So let’s take a look at a single aspect of the “traditional” (and in many respects pleasing and appropriate) production design Del Monaco and Scott conceived for Fanciulla, the juxtaposition of the outdoor environment with the indoor spaces that contain the action of the first two acts. That’s an aspect that was of importance to both the playwright and the composer.