"Better no medicine than an unskilful physician" (Old Proverb)
At St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, a member of the staff talks about the hundred years old Medical School and the intensive training that the modern doctor undergoes in acquiring his skill.
(Another programme from St. Mary's: tomorrow at 10.0 p.m.)

Contributors

Speaker:: A member of St. Mary's Hospital staff [name uncredited]
Producer:: Keith Rogers

Source: Radio Times

20:45

The Girl of the Golden West

BBC Television

Thu 30^th Sep 1954, 20:45 on BBC Television

View in Radio Times

An opera in three acts from the drama by David Belasco.
[Starring] Elaine Malbin
A section of the Covent Garden Opera Chorus
(Chorus-Master, Douglas Robinson)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
(Leader, Joseph Shadwick)
Conducted by Edward Renton

The action of the opera takes place at the foot of the Cloudy Mountains, California, in a mining camp in the days of the gold rush in 1849.
(Second performance: October 4)

(Edward Renton conducts by permission of Eugene Iskoldoff; The Covent Garden Opera Chorus appears by permission of the General Administrator, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Ltd.)

The great open spaces of California in those lawless days when the State had just joined the Union and men had come from all countries to fight and die there, lured by the elusive promise of gold, provide the setting for the opera. It is a wild land, untamed and beautiful, that has not yet become the fabulous home of glamorous pictures. It is a place where people of all races and creeds join forces to wrench gold from the land-men who obey no law. They are lonely fighters, brave settlers, gangs of robbers, evil sheriffs, living in shanty towns on the edge of untrodden forests.

Such is the background of our drama-a drama in which the actors use few words of dialogue, relying almost exclusively on the music to express the intensity of their feeling and the grandeur of their surroundings. And this is where our drama becomes an opera, a fast story of the West told in terms of exciting music: the story of a gang of men and of a single woman, the Girl of the Golden West, Minnie, who owns the saloon known as 'The Polka' and acts as sister, mother, friend, nurse, and teacher to every man in the camp-a girl whom every man loves, a girl who has let no man kiss her.

The gold that the men wrench from this wild land is kept in a barrel behind the counter in Minnie's saloon. Ramerrez the bandit is after the gold-but Ramerrez is also the man who, unknown to her, has awakened strange feelings in Minnie's heart. And here is the seed of the conflict that will spring in the mind and in the heart of The Girl of the Golden West - a drama of love, greed, and redemption set against a dark and vast background of primitive nature.

Puccini chose this subject after Boheme, Tosca, and Butterfly-like Butterfly it was a drama by Belasco so vividly and simply told in terms of the theatre that Puccini was able to follow the action when he first saw it on the New York stage although he could not speak one single word of English; and if the other characters in the drama were tougher than the ones he dealt with in his previous operas, Minnie was at heart as strong as Tosca, as feminine as Mimi, as faithful as Butterfly.

Preceding only La Rondine, Il Trittico, and Turandot, The Girl of the Golden West belongs to the maturity of Puccini: the superb scoring reaches unprecedented heights and the composer, in his unfailing inspiration, didn't hesitate to write such popular melodies as the famous aria 'Let her believe that I have gained my freedom' sung by Ramerrez at the foot of the gallows in the last act. (George Foa)