A picture-perfect operetta: the vastness of the Hungarian puszta; an impoverished aristocratic lover; an attractive, self-confident countess; a cross-cheerful buffo; a lively soubrette; touching waltzes and fiery csárdás numbers. But all these ingredients do not add up to a successful work of art unless they are combined with the greatest skill, exquisite taste, sincere feeling and a good dose of humor. Emmerich Kálmán and his librettists succeeded in this in the best possible way in their
Gräfin Mariza, which was first performed in 1924.
And so, since then, generations of lovers of the light muse have suffered and fevered with the penniless Count Tassilo, who falls in love with the beautiful Mariza. But it takes an entertaining evening of operetta before the two actually find each other.
The Landestheater is pleased that after the great success of Franz Lehár's Der Graf von Luxemburg, the same directing team headed by Thomas Enzinger will also take on Kálmán's hit piece.
