Behsco and Puccini: "Old, Dog Tray" and the Zuni Indians Allan W. Atlas La Fanciulla del West occupies a special place in Puccini's output. It stands at the beginning of what some have called the composer's second period, as with Fanciulla Puccini broke with the tragidie larmoy' ante and its steady stream of lyrical showstoppers that he had culti- vated so successfully from Manon Lescaut through Madama Butterfly.L It is the Puccini opera for which there is apparently the greatest amount of extant early sketches and continuity drafts that he himself realized, and the only opera by the composer for which there are cor- rected proof sheets.2 It is probably the least appreciated—by both critics and public—of Puccini's mature masterpieces.3 And it is Pucci- ni's only "all-American" opera: in terms of subject matter (the rough and tumble days of the California Gold Rush), dramatic source (David Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West), and place of first performance (New York's Metropolitan Opera, on 10 December 1910). This article identifies one of the American sources for Fanciulla: the model for the melody of "Che faranno i vecchi miei," the song that the minstrel Jake Wallace sings near the beginning of act 1. The recent Puccini literature about this matter is, at best, ambiguous and confusing, at worst, simply wrong. But the correct source can be iden- tified beyond a shadow of a doubt, and ironically, the answer was available—admittedly in an obscure corner—all the time. As a coun- terpoint to this, I will also discuss the melody that Belasco used for his own Jake Wallace in the parallel scene of The Girl of the Golden West, which Puccini saw in New York in January or February 1907 (see note 6). Finally, I shall discuss the changed functional-dramatic context to which Puccini subjected the model and show how he wrestled with it in his earliest sketches for the opera. These last two aspects afford us a glimpse into certain of Puccini's cultural attitudes and into his compo- sitional process at its most elemental stage. 362 Puccmi, "Old Dog Tray," and die Zuru 363 Andante tiaaquilto J • 46 JAKE WALLACE (interno molto lontano)^ ^ Itt 1 ^ "Che fe - 201 Andante tnnquilloJ> 46 4-* i - no i vec - chl miei 14 Ion - ta - no, 14 Ion- 1. La Fanciulla del West, act 1, Jake Wallace's song (20/1/2-22/2/4) 1 Soon after the curtain goes up on act 1 of La Fanciulla, the roving minstrel Jake Wallace entertains the miners who are milling about the barroom of the Polka Saloon with the song in Example 1 (he begins off-stage, approaches slowly, and enters at the words "La mia mamma").4 WC - |! | ASD - pi( IUIS1 d)BU - 3S JBU - UO' /xxauj• ^3 ^ .kj NI3X f MVITVO3 JBU - UO pis UOU :OJ - ur frfrfrfrfrf f |frffffffffffffff J J NI3M • Doujiunap Puccini, "Old Dog Tray," and the Zuni 365 J. WALLACE (enorando)^. *La mia (continuando) f r " mam - ma, che fe - rt JIO non J J J J J -r- tof - no, s 10 non tof - no: Quan-to 1. continued 366 The Musical Quarterly J. WALLACE plan - ge-ra!" TR1N PP P T Quan-to pian - ge-ra! HARRY T Quan-to pian - ge-ra! BELLO PP Quan-to pian - gc-ra! HAPPY PP Quan-to plan - ge-rtl (Akunl Tenori) PP ¥ J I J- (Akuni Baritonl o Baul) Quan - to plan - ge-ra! esprasivo Example I. continued Puccini, "Old Dog Tray," and the Zwni 367 Example 1. continued After the two-measure interlude, shown at the end of Example 1, the miners, who had just echoed Jake's "quanto piangera," continue to sing along with him. Their words are as follows:5 Alcuni minatori Al telaio tesserii [At the loom she'll weave lino e duolo linen and sorrow pel linzuolo for the shroud che poi la ricoprira that will cover her ...] E il mio cane dopo tanto ... [And (will) my dog after so long ...] ]ake Wallace II mio cane [(Will) my dog] Altri minatari II mio cane [Will my dog mi rawisera?... recognize me?...] Harry 0 mia casa, al riva accanto ... [Oh, my house, by the bank ...] 1 Minatori [below] La lontano ... [Far away ...] J Mmatori [above] La lontano ... [Far away ...] Tutti ... Chi di noi ti rivedra? [Which of us will you see again?] This scene is closely modeled on the corresponding scene near the beginning of Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West, which, as noted, Puccini saw during a five-week visit to New York in January and February 1907.6 In the play, Jake Wallace enters, sings the popu- lar song "Wait for the Wagon," and then, after being introduced by Nick (as he is in the opera), fields a request from Sonora: "Aw—give 368 The Musical Quarterly us 'Old Dog Tray,' Jake." Jake then introduces his song as "Old Dog Tray, or Echoes from Home":7 Jake "How often do I picture Them old folks down to home; And often wonder if they think of me!" Sonora [interrupting] Slugs worth of chips. Jake "Would angel mother know me, If back there I did roam? Would Old Dog Tray remember me?" Now boys! AH "Oh, mother, angel modier, are you a-waitin' there, Beside die littul cottage on the lea?" Jake "On the lea-" All "How often would she bless me, all in them days so fair- Would Old Dog Tray remember me?" Sonora "Remember me!" Although the text of Puccini's song is not a line-by-line transla- tion, it retains Belasco's imagery8 and sentimentality. But what of Puccini's melody? It is here that the Puccini literature has run into trouble.9 Michele Girardi writes, "The melody of his [Jake Wallace's] song is that of one of the most popular among California folksongs, Old Dog Tray."10 Charles Osborne asserts, "The melody ... is that of an old American song, 'Old Dog Tray,' "n while William Ashbrook also identifies the minstrel's song as "Old Dog Tray."12 Enzo Restagno's monograph on La Fanciulla states, "As is well known, the melody sung by the minstrel is nonoriginal; it derives, in fact, from Puccini's research into American folklore."13 Finally, in 1959 Mosco Camer wrote, somewhat inconsistently, about the model for Jake Wallace's song on two occasions: in a sym- Puccini, "Old Dog Tray," and the Zuru 369 1 j jg. j j: 31 „ Example 2. Wordless African-American chant posium paper on Puccini's musical "exoticism" and in the first edition of his still-standard study of the composer's life and works. In the symposium article, Carner cites Jake Wallace's melody as an example of Puccini's having "freely varied certain exotic melodies or ... used them as models for the invention of melodies constructed in similar fashion."14 More specifically, he includes a music example with the intent of showing the derivation of the head motive of Puccini's mel- ody from one of two "canti popolari negri" that he believes that Puc- cini used in the opera. Example 2 gives Carner's proposed model for Jake Wallace's song, together with the bracket that he includes to show the point of correspondence.I5 If this identification is rather ambiguous (and altogether suspect), Carner was more explicit in his biography of Puccini, where he identifies Jake Wallace's melody specif- ically with "Old Dog Tray": "The melody most frequently employed— one which in fact assumes the role of a theme song—is the nostalgic Old Dog Tray, also known as Echoes from Home . . . first heard from the minstrel's lips."16 It was Puccini and Belasco themselves who inadvertently started this wild-goose chase. Puccini, as he had done when he searched for authentic Japanese melodies for Madama Butterfly, scoured through a number of publications of American music to get the right "atmo- sphere," as he put it. Three letters written to his friend Sybil Selig- man in London in the space of less than two weeks in July 1907 attest to his search: (1) 12 July: "have you any means of obtaining, in America or London itself, some early American music . . .. I'm writ- ing on my own account—but as I need as much as possible in order to get the atmosphere, will you look round too"; (2) 18 July: "About the music, good—many thanks"; and (3) 22 July: "Thank you for the Indian songs you sent me; I've also written to America to get them— and I await those you promised me."17 As for Belasco, according to William Winter's "authorized" biography of the playwright, Puccini, while attending a performance of The Girl in New York (of which, of course, he understood hardly a word), evinced little enthusiasm until Jake Wallace offered his rendition of "Old Dog Tray," at which point Puccini said, "Ah, there is my theme at last."18 370 The Musical Quarterly Puccini's melody, however, is unrelated to any song entitled "Old Dog Tray," including the well-known one by Stephen Foster. First, Pucci- ni's melody and Belasco's words are incompatible. And we need not rely solely upon our musical intuition, since there is evidence that has escaped notice that permits us to reconstruct the melody of Belasco's minstrel: the original musical materials used by Belasco's music direc- tor, William Wallace Furst (1852-1917),19 are preserved at NYp(m), where they have the signature: "JPB—82-38: Furst, William. The Girl of the Golden West."20 Box 4, folder 15, contains the music for "Entr'acte No. 3," which was played between acts 3 and 4 of The .Girl.21 There, second in the medley of six well-known songs that made up the entr'acte, is "Old Dog Tray," arranged by Furst for a male quartet of two tenors, baritone, and bass, with the accompani- ment of a small pit orchestra.22 And as Example 3 illustrates, the words that the quartet sings in entr'acte 3, no. 2, are precisely those sung by Jake Wallace at the beginning of act 1.23 As was the common practice of the time, the second tenor car- ries the melody. If there were any doubts about this, they are put to rest by box 4, folders 6 and 16, which contain booklets marked "Leader" and "Conductor," respectively.24 At the spot in entr'acte 3 where the "Old Dog Tray" quartet should appear, we find the follow- ing: "Here voice Dog Tray 1 verse," followed by the second tenor part only (folder 6, 34), and "Quartett," ith just the second tenor part w entered (folder 16, 30, 37). Further, the "part book" for the on-stage banjo player in box 4, folder 16, presents the second tenor part as a solo song with banjo accompaniment. This was undoubtedly the ver- sion of the song that Belasco's Jake Wallace sang (Ex. 4).25 Clearly, the Jake Wallace songs in La FanciuUa and The Girl are unrelated to one another, and those statements that claim or imply that Puccini's melody for Jake Wallace in La FanciuUa is based on the American song "Old Dog Tray" and that Puccini borrowed that mel- ody after having heard it in Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West are wrong. The evidence is unequivocal. Or is it? In writing about the relationship between Puccini's and Belasco's songs for their respective minstrels, Gerardi, as I noted, characterized the "Old Dog Tray" that he presumed Puccini to have borrowed from Puccini, "Old Dog Tray," and the Zuni 371 How of-ten do 1 pic-ture Them old folks down to home; And of - ten won-der Tenor II JIIJ j IJ i [How of-ten do I pic-ture Them old folks down to home; And of - ten won-der Baritone ^ -r [How of-ten do 1 pK-ture Them old folks down to home; And of - ten won-der Bats i c_r ir1 r i J J [How of-ten do I pic-ture Them old folks down to home; And of - ten won-der !r c_^ ir IT if they think of me!. Would an - gel moth - er know me, if J J J JM if they think of me!. Would an - gel moth - er know me, if •'"£ £=FF LJlg r If they drink of mel. Would an - gel moth - er know me, if r i rr i j, J JH if dwy think of me!. Would an - gel moth - er Imow me, if Example 3. The Girl of the Golden West, entr'acte 3, no. 2: "Old Dog Tray," arranged by William Furst for male quartet, NYp(m), Furst Collection, JPB—82-38, box 4, folder 15 Belasco as "one of the most popular" among the songs of Old Califor- nia. And if Osbome, Ashbrook, and Carner are not quite as explicit about the popularity of "Old Dog Tray," they nevertheless refer to it with a tone of familiarity that seems to take its renown for granted. Yet this is an odd way to characterize a song that seems to have had little—if any—life outside of Belasco's Girl.26 But Girardi's reference to the great popularity of "Old Dog Tray" might make more sense if we allow that the song that Girardi and the