Kálmán was one of Hitler's favorite composers. We don't like to think of Hitler as having, like, aesthetic tastes that don't involve genocide, because it brings home the fact that he was a human being, whereas it's more comfortable just to think of him as a monster outside of normal human experience. I hesitated to use the word "humanize" there because that has connotations of making him sympathetic, which it doesn't at all--but it's something to ponder. Hitler offered to make Kálmán an "honorary Aryan," though he wisely fled to the US instead. Just goes to show: nazis don't even have the courage of their fucked-up convictions. What stupid, worthless losers, regardless of their taste in musical theater. Not that I'm telling you anything you didn't know.
ANYWAY, here we have this. There's a bailiff Béla Törek, come to work on the titular Countess Mariza's estate. Only he's actually secretly a count fallen on hard times. As a single hot noblewoman, Mariza is sick of the constant barrage of marriage proposals, so she invents a dude whom she claims she's going to marry. Seems like that would only work out for her in the extremely short-term, but what the hey. Her fake suitor is named Koloman Zsupán, after the pig farmer in Strauss' Zigeunerbaron, but then an actual baron by that name shows up. Helluva coincidence, that. Anyway, there are some misunderstandings, blah blah, operetta, you know the score, and ultimately, Törek (real name: Tassilo) marries Mariza and his sister Lisa marries Zsupán.
I'm tempted to suggest that Kálmán might be the most talented of these pre-War German operetta composers (well, technically he was Hungarian, but obviously he worked in the same milieu). The story is extremely serviceable, but the music is fucking fantastic. Lots of folk elements. The only mild complaint I have is that the action sort of screeches to a halt near the end when some of Törek's relatives show up for allegedly comic hijinx. I could have lived with that part being substantially abridged. Otherwise--terrific stuff. I wish more of Kálmán were available.
Great production, too. I mean, it's Seefestspiele Mörbische, what do you expect, but even by their standards: great. The overture is accompanied by a delightful ballet sequence of dancers dressed in bird suits, which kicks things off to a good start, and it goes from there. I also have to give credit to Dagmar Schellenberger, who absolutely kills in the title role. Nothing much to not like here!
Oh yeah, also, with this, I've now seen every opera on this list. Hurray for arbitrary goals! Now I'll have to seek out another.
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