La fanciulla del West

So La rondine comes at a really interesting moment in Puccini's career.

He's back off the success of La fanciulla del West in New York, which was a huge success with the public, a little bit more of a mixed reaction with critics.

But he's then looking for a new project, and this has been a bit of a theme for his career basically since, um, he finished writing Ma- Madame Butterfly.

It always took him longer to come up with a new project, and he'd been playing around with a few ideas at this point.

And I would say that the most American opera...

Otherwise was maybe Fanciulla del West.

Oh.

Because there wasn't a lot of opera being written about America.

Uh, and so my son stayed with me, uh, the majority of the year.

But there were a couple of, like, crazy puzzle piece moments, right? Like, uh, for instance, she was busy singing Minnie, uh, in Wichita Grand Opera's, uh, Fanciulla.

And I had to be in Nashville with my son, uh, singing Basilio, and that was a great production.

But we had no money.