The Duchess of Chicago

Oper Leipzig, Musical Comedy Theatre Westbad, Leipzig, Germany

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7 PM

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Important Info

Type: Opera

City: Leipzig, Germany

Starts at: 19:00

Acts: 2

Intervals: 1

Duration:

Ticket delivery: E-Tickets

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Overview

What do you get when you cross a wealthy American heiress with an eastern European heir to the throne – who also happens to be deeply in debt? Why, a musical clash of cultures, of course! In this piece, Emmerich Kálmán deftly juxtaposes elements of jazz and the foxtrot with the Viennese Waltz and the Hungarian Czárdás.

Operetta in two acts with prelude and postlude

History

Premiere of this production: 05 April 1928, Theater an der Wien, Vienna

Die Herzogin von Chicago (The Duchess of Chicago) is an operetta in two acts, a prologue, and an epilogue. The music was composed by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán with a libretto by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grünwald. It premiered in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien on April 5, 1928, and played for 372 performances. The work was presented in out-of-town tryouts in Newark, New Jersey and Springfield, Massachusetts by the Shuberts in 1929, but it did not make it to Broadway. The piece was forgotten until 1997, when the Lubo Opera Company performed it in concert in New York, after which Light Opera Works of Illinois performed the work in 1998 in a fully staged version with a new translation by Philip Kraus and Gregory Opelka. In 1999, Richard Bonynge made a recording of the work, which revived international interest in it.

Synopsis

The story revolves around Miss Mary Lloyd, who makes a bet with her fawning circle of girlfriends, the "Eccentric Young Ladies Club", as to which of them can buy the most expensive thing in Europe, because they are so wealthy that they can buy anything. Meanwhile, back in the bankrupt state of Sylvaria, Prince Sándor Boris and his ministers are trying to keep the natives happy while the king is off to Monte Carlo. Then, as now, there is nothing like a royal wedding to please the locals. The prince makes a marriage pact with his old pal, Princess Rosemarie of Morenia, but there is no love between them.

Mary arrives in Budapest, where she meets who she thinks is the prince, while the real prince has been pretending to be an aide-de-camp. She, of course, prefers the aide, and there is chemistry between them at the nightclub, though the prince prefers Viennese waltzes, and Mary prefers the Charleston. Later, in Sylvaria, Mary arranges to buy the royal palace, and is shocked to learn the true identity of her friend the "aide". She decides that, having bought the palace, she must also have "the prince that goes with it".

Bondy and the prince's promised bride fall in love and, despite themselves, Mary and the prince do so, too, though they still debate the relative merits of their favorite dances. But when the prince reads a letter that Mary wrote to her father, he gets the impression that she is merely buying him, and goes back to his older engagement.

Back in Budapest, we learn that Bondy and Princess Rosemarie have eloped. The King of Sylvaria arrives with two Parisian floozies and tries to romance Mary (Sylvaria needs her money), but she, though amused, is not interested. But everything is saved when an American producer announces that he wants to make a movie about Mary and the prince, but cannot do so until the story has a genuine, American-style happy ending. The two compromise on a slow foxtrot.

Venue Info

Oper Leipzig - Leipzig
Augustusplatz 12

Oper Leipzig is one of the most famous and oldest opera houses in Europe. Oper Leipzig stands for the highest musical and craft quality. It is based on active ensemble culture and the promotion of young singers. The program ranges from opera, opera, operetta, musical to classic and modern ballet. There are also numerous offers and in-house productions for children, young adults and families.

Oper Leipzig forms the roof for a three-division house consisting of an opera, Leipzig ballet and musical comedy. Located in the Opera House (Opera & Leipzig Ballet) in the center of Leipzig and in the Dreilinden House (Musical Comedy) in the Lindenau district, it has a tradition of more than 325 years of musical theater care in Leipzig. In 1693 the first opera house on Brühl was opened as the third bourgeois music theater in Europe after Venice and Hamburg. Since 1840, the world-famous Gewandhaus Orchestra has played on all performances of opera and ballet. Prof. Ulf Schirmer has been General Music Director of the Leipzig Opera since the 2009/10 season. Under his musical direction, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss' works in particular become the focus of the repertoire.

Performances of opera in Leipzig trace back to Singspiel performances beginning in the year 1693. The director of many of those early operas at the original Opernhaus auf dem Brühl was Telemann.

The Leipzig Opera does not have its own opera orchestra – the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra performs as its orchestra. This relationship began in 1766 with performances of the Singspiel Die verwandelten Weiber, oder Der Teufel ist los by Johann Adam Hiller.

The previous theater (the "Neues Theater") was inaugurated on 28 January 1868 with Jubilee Overture by Carl Maria von Weber and the overture for Iphigénie en Aulide by Gluck and Goethe's play Iphigenia in Tauris. From 1886 to 1888, Gustav Mahler was the second conductor; Arthur Nikisch was his superior. During an air raid in the night of 3 December 1943, part of the bombing of Leipzig in World War II, the theater was destroyed, as were all Leipzig's theatres.

Construction of the modern opera house began in 1956. The theater was inaugurated on 8 October 1960 with a performance of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Since 2009, Ulf Schirmer is the Generalmusikdirektor (General Music Director, or GMD); he was elected artistic director in 2011 for a five-year term.

Important Info

Type: Opera

City: Leipzig, Germany

Starts at: 19:00

Acts: 2

Intervals: 1

Duration:

Choralkantaten

St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig - Leipzig

30 Nov -0001, Mon, 12 AM

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