Fired up by its sensational Tosca, available on DVD from Decca, the Netherlands Opera clearly wanted a repeat of its earlier winner. The director for La fanciulla del West was again Nikolaus Lehnhoff and, although this new production from December last year was not an unqualified success, Lehnhoff’s vision for it certainly set its sights just as high. What we see is an updated parable of the American dream. While capitalism rages in the city skyscrapers, the “miners” skulk around in underground bars and car-breakers’ yards. Minnie lives in a trailer, painted shocking pink inside and with a statuette of the Madonna on top of the television set. Her dream is to escape the drudgery of a blue-collar existence and in the final scene she appears, like Jean Harlow, at the top of a glittering staircase to be carried off to a Hollywood happy ending, while a film of the MGM lion growls away happily on the backdrop. Does it all make sense? Not really; but the characters are vividly portrayed and the settings look spectacular.

In musical terms the performance is a good one without upstaging earlier DVD versions (for instance, the La Scala production, 10/04). Eva-Maria Westbroek, a local “golden girl” in Amsterdam, won a big personal success as Minnie and brings star quality to the role, even if her top notes do not ring out as easily as they might. In the theatre, perhaps aided by the sound enhancement system, Zoran Todorovich sounded mightily impressive and his rough diamond Dick Johnson, sung with brassy tenor self-confidence, remains an asset here. Lucio Gallo, though, sounds worn as Jack Rance and the supporting cast has some weaknesses. Carlo Rizzi keeps the score on a tight rein – too tight where Puccini’s music asks to caress the heart – but the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra plays scrupulously for him.