Fatinitza
Music by Franz von Suppé · libretto by Camillo Walzel · premiered 1876 · at Carltheater
Fatinitza was the first full-length, three-act operetta by Franz von Suppé. The libretto by F. Zell (a pseudonym for Camillo Walzel) and Richard Genée was based on the libretto to La circassienne by Eugène Scribe (which had been set to music by Daniel Auber in 1861), but with the lead role of Wladimir, a young Russian lieutenant who has to disguise himself as a woman, changed to a trousers role; in other words, a woman played the part of the man who pretended to be a woman. It premièred on 5 January 1876, at the Carltheater Vienna, and proved a huge success, running for more than a hundred performances, with the march "Vorwärts mit frischem Muth", proving a particular hit. The operetta as a whole is no longer in the popular repertory, but the overture is performed as a stand-alone piece.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Fatinitza", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Franz von Suppé, born Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo de Suppé (18 April 1819 – 21 May 1895) was an Austrian composer of light operas and other theatre music. He came from the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now part of Croatia). A composer and conductor of the Romantic period, he is notable for his four dozen operettas, including the first operetta to a German libretto. Some of them remain in the repertory, particularly in German-speaking countries, and he composed a substantial quantity of church music, but he is now chiefly known for his overtures, which remain popular in the concert hall and on record. Among the best-known are Poet and Peasant, Light Cavalry, Morning,…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Franz von Suppé", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Franz von Suppé
- Die schöne Galathée
- Leichte Kavallerie (1866)
- Boccaccio (1878)
- Des Matrosen Heimkehr (1879)
- Donna Juanita (1880)
- Dichter und Bauer (1900)