New Year’s Evening of Operetta

The operetta is a genre associable with joying, dancing and laughing, to be brief, with all attributes of the true festival. That is why the Operetta Night was prepared as a New Year’s gift to be held at the Chamber Hall of the Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. Duets and arias from the favorable operettas will be performed by opera soloists accompanied by the chamber orchestra under the baton of Valery Trubin-Leonov.

The vocal music from any operetta has been awash with dance rhythms of a waltz, polka or czardas. One could not get its tunes out of his or her head for a long time; as an example, we can mention the ardent refrain of the duet between the violinist Sári and the young Count Gaston from the early operetta The Gypsy Virtuoso by Emmerich Kálmán (1882–1953).

Operetta characters are usually venturous in search of their fortune. Even such obstacle as a social inequality is overcomable. They give us a lead in the way to love, which can be hard but has a happy ending. The story of Sylva Varescu, a main female character in The Gypsy Princess by Kálmán, is of the kind. She is a variety show star who married the young Count Edwin due to her joker. In another operetta by Kálmán, Countess Maritza, the rich widow and the ruined Count Tassilo become a married couple after their mutual distrust and tough choices. The nice girl Monika from Monika by Nico Dostal (1895–1981) married an accomplished physician notwithstanding their intriguing kinsmen.

Sometimes the true love is nigh at hand, and all you need is to look closely at your good friends or your wife. That is the way by which the painter Raul from Kálmán’s The Violet of Montmartre or the unfaithful husband from The Flittermouse by Johann Strauss II (1825–1899) is enlightened.

Operettas by Franz Lehár (1870–1948) set themselves apart. The composer believed that the audience did not want to laugh but to cry. His operettas were rare samples of the genre with no happy end. His The Land of Smiles is a story of the Chinese Prince Sou-Chong’s love for a Hungarian beauty, who finally parted from each other because of a difference in their national customs. His last operetta Giuditta is about a destiny of a freedom-loving Spanish dancer. Notwithstanding the sad end, the solo arias from these operettas are greatly popular. When Giuditta was premiered in Berlin in 1929, the tenor gave four encores of Sou-Chong’s aria “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz“ (“I have given my heart to you”). Giuditta’s aria “Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß” (“My lips kiss so hotly”) is a star turn for prima donnas.

Natalia Rogudeeva