World premieres have never been the lifeblood of the Metropolitan Opera. Not until the company had been in business upward of a quarter century did it introduce its first brand-new title, which over the years has emerged as far and away the most successful on a list that now totals a modest 35 (that’s including this season’s Lincoln in the Bardo, by Missy Mazzoli). Yes, we’re talking about Giacomo Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West (1910), based on the Gold Rush blockbuster written, designed, and directed by David Belasco, the Prometheus of Broadway. The Met’s big guns were out in force. As Minnie, mistress of the Polka Saloon, Bible reader, and brazen cheater at cards, Emmy Destinn made a gold-hearted Tosca of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Enrico Caruso sang the outlaw she falls for, with Pasquale Amato as the smitten lawman who wants to send him to the gallows. Arturo Toscanini conducted, with Belasco himself masterminding all particulars of the staging and production. At the box office, opening-night tickets went for three to ten dollars (double the usual price). Per a newspaper report, one lucky scalper unloaded a single for $150 while others got burned, left to hawk their treasure at face value minutes before curtain. Critics rank the score of Fanciulla as one of Puccini’s finest, yet over the long haul, its luster with the public has dimmed. The Met’s all-time top seller, La Bohème, chalked up 1,430 performances from its Met premiere in 1900 through the end of last season, with another 17 to be added over the current season (Moonstruck, anyone?). Fanciulla’s tally through its most recent performance, in 2018, stands at 111. At that, no other Met novelty has come anywhere close to three figures, and any reboot is a major occasion. What will this one look like? Don’t ask the British director Richard Jones, who runs closed rehearsals and blows interviewers off with his dictum that a show must speak for itself. The Vogue-ready Lithuanian Valkyrie Vida Miknevičiūtė makes her house debut as Minnie opposite the self-effacing Korean phenom SeokJong Baek as her outlaw beau. The British baritone Christopher Maltman, formerly an A-list Don Giovanni, now a reigning Wotan, plays the losing hand of Jack Rance, whose sheriff’s badge cuts no ice with Minnie at all. Guess who gets to ride off into the sunset? —Matthew Gurewitsch