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Arizona Lady

Music by Emmerich Kálmán · libretto by Alfred Grünwald

Arizona Lady is an operetta in two acts by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán. The libretto was written by Alfred Grünwald and Gustav Beer. Left unfinished at the time of Kálmán's death in 1953, the score was completed by his son, Charles Kálmán. The story concerns Lona, a charming Hungarian immigrant, now a rancher. She hires a new ranch foreman, Roy, a cowboy with a questionable past. Roy is reluctant to work for a woman but intrigued by her prize racehorse, Arizona Lady; the two inevitably fall in love, but many complications ensue.

The piece premiered as a broadcast in Munich on 1 January 1954, and on stage in Bern, at the Stadttheater, on 14 February 1954. Arizona Lady's American premiere was directed by Bill Walters, with a new English translation by Gerald Frantzen and Hersh Glagov, by Chicago Folks Operetta in July 2010, at Stage 773 in Chicago, Illinois. Arizona Opera mounted a production in 2015, and Ohio Light Opera performed it several times in the summer of 2023.

Text from the Wikipedia article "Arizona Lady", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the Composer

Emmerich Kálmán (Hungarian: Kálmán Imre [ˈkaːlmaːn ˈimrɛ]; 24 October 1882 – 30 October 1953) was a Hungarian composer of operettas and a prominent figure in the development of Viennese operetta in the 20th century. Among his most popular works are Die Csárdásfürstin (1915) and Gräfin Mariza (1924). Influences on his compositional style include Hungarian folk music (such as the csárdás), the Viennese style of precursors such as Johann Strauss II and Franz Lehár, and, in his later works, American jazz. As a result of the Anschluss, Kálmán and his family fled to Paris and then to the United States. He eventually returned to Europe in 1949 and died in Paris in 1953.

Text from the Wikipedia article "Emmerich Kálmán", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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Other Operas by Emmerich Kálmán