La fanciulla del West is in fact an operatic Western. Based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by David Belasco it had its premiere in New York in 1910 and tells how the love of a good woman (the bar owner Minnie) redeems the bandit Dick Johnson: the two eventually go off together to start a new life - a rare Puccini happy ending. Johnson sings the aria Ch'ella mi creda as a plea that Minnie should never learn of his fate. 'Let her' he asks, 'think me free and far away'.
