Giuditta
Music by Franz Lehár · libretto by Paul Knepler · premiered 1934
Giuditta is an operatic musikalische Komödie (German for musical comedy) in five scenes, with music by Franz Lehár and a German libretto, by Paul Knepler and Fritz Löhner-Beda. Scored for a large orchestra, it was Lehár's last and most ambitious work, written on a larger scale than his previous operettas. Of all his works it is the one which most approaches true opera, the resemblances between the story and that of Bizet's Carmen and its unhappy ending heightening the resonances. Perhaps the best known song in the work is the soprano aria "Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß", sung by Giuditta in the fourth scene. Another strong influence, especially for the North African setting, was the 1930 movie Morocco, starring Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper in very similar central roles, she being a singer-dancer, he being a soldier.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Giuditta", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Franz Lehár ( LAY-har; Hungarian: Lehár Ferenc [ˈlɛhaːr ˈfɛrɛnt͡s]; 30 April 1870 – 24 October 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer. He is mainly known for his operettas, of which the most successful and best known is The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe).
Text from the Wikipedia article "Franz Lehár", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Franz Lehár
- Der Göttergatte (1904)
- Der Graf von Luxemburg (1909)
- Gypsy Love (1910)
- Eva (1911)
- Endlich allein (1914)
- Der Zarewitsch (1917)
- Die blaue Mazur (1920)