A beautiful but bored housewife in a Mediterranean port city (let’s say Barcelona) charms an Army captain who is en route to a campaign in a North African city (let’s say Tangiers) and impulsively takes off with him, and the two live together in his villa in North Africa. But duty calls, and he must leave her to join his regiment. She begs him to stay, but he marches off, more than a little worried that the men of North Africa may be drawn to her like ants to a picnic.
His worries are well founded, for soon she is a successful exotic dancer in a nightclub, where her charms are irresistible to the club’s well heeled patrons. The captain finally deserts his regiment and tracks her down, but it is too late: She has found a life that agrees with her.
Years later, the broken-hearted captain is reduced to working as a cocktail pianist in a luxury hotel. His old flame is ushered to a table to await her escort for the evening, a wealthy duke. The captain plays a few bars of “their” old song (no, it’s not “As Time Goes By’), and she recognizes him and tries to restart the old romance. Alas, this time it’s too late for him, for he’s a broken man. The girl leaves with the duke.
That, more or less, is the plot of Franz Lehar’s last major operetta, Giuditta. premiered at the Vienna State Opera in 1934, about 30 years after Lehar wrote what is probably the most successful operetta of all time, The Merry Widow. The Vienna premiere of Giuditta (Lehar’s favorite of all his works) was broadcast worldwide by no fewer than 120 radio stations, but for all that, it was not well received by the locals, and to this day it has never been seen in New York, London, or Paris.
Has your curiosity been piqued? Good, because I am here to tell you that a fine CD recording exists, in English, courtesy of Telarc. It stars Jerry Hadley, familiar to all PBS fans, as Octavio, the captain, and Deborah Riedel in the title role. A full-bodied English Chamber Orchestra backs them up, and the excellent program booklet includes the entire libretto. You may recognize a couple of the songs: “Love, Gentle and Tender” and “Kiss My Lips and Your Heart’s Aflame” (both woeful translations of the original German). The CD was recorded in London in 1996, and it is technically very good. Hadley, a superb tenor, is in good voice. Riedel is a capable soprano, if a bit shrill at times. The secondary couple (there’s always a secondary couple in these things) are Naomi Itami and Lynton Atkinson, both solid performers.
So now there’s one more way to escape the Hillary-Obama-McCain drumbeat that is the curse of television these nights.
If you like operetta, check out this summer’s program at the Ohio Light Opera, in Wooster. In addition to standards like The Mikado and The Desert Song, the OLO will stage rarely hear operettas like The Czarevitch, L’etoile, and Marinka. The season is laid out for you at ohiolightopera@wooster.edu.
