Giuditta
- Giuditta (soprano )
- Captain Octavio (tenor )
- Anita, a fisherman's daughter ( soubrette )
- Pierrino, a fruiterer, Anita's lover ( Tenorbuffo )
- Manuele Biffi, Giudittas husband ( basso buffo )
- Col. Antonio, Octavio's friend ( bass)
- Edward Lord Barrymore, one of Giudittas admirers (voice)
- The Duke of ***, another admirer Giudittas (voice)
- The adjutant of the Duke (voice)
- Ibrahim, owner of the establishment " Alcazar " (voice)
- Professor Martini ( bass)
- Lolitta, a dancer (voice)
- The host Sebastiano (voice)
- Two street singers ( tenors )
- A dancer
- Two waiters
- A fisherman
- Bouncer
- Citizens, officers, soldiers, guests, dancers, musicians (chorus and supernumeraries )
Giuditta is an operetta in five images. It is the last operetta, composed by Franz Lehár. He himself called his work a "musical comedy ." The libretto was written Knepler Paul and Fritz Löhner- Beda. First performance was at the Vienna State Opera on 20 January 1934. In the title role Jarmila Novotná was to see the male lead sang Richard Tauber, conductor was the composer.
Orchestra
Two flutes, one piccolo, two oboes, one English horn, two clarinets, one bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, a, a harp, celesta, timpani and strings.
Action
Place and time
The operetta is set in Southern Italy and in the then occupied by Italy Libya in the 30s of the 20th century
First Photo
Marketplace in a southern Italian port town
Giuditta is married to the much older Manuele and bored in her marriage. Your fiery temper she inherited from her mother, who was once a celebrated dancer. She would like to break out of their marriage. It is therefore very convenient to her that she is approached by the young officer Octavio. For both it is love at first sight. As Giuditta then also hears that Octavio is to North Africa, the home of her mother, reassigned, she leaves her husband and takes with Octavio the next ship to Libya.
Second Picture
A magnificent garden in Libya
Giuditta and Octavio enjoy life to the fullest in a villa by the sea. But soon the happy life is interrupted when Octavio receive their marching orders. Giuditta tries to blackmail him by threatening him that she will not wait for him, if he leave now.
Third picture
Camp in North Africa
Octavio is lovesick. He plays to desert with the idea to so stay with his beloved Giuditta can. His friend Antonio speaks to his conscience and tries to comfort him. Finally, Octavio, reason prevails. He will take their marching orders.
Fourth image
Nightclub
Giuditta has found a job as a dancer in a night club in Tripoli. She leads a dissolute life and gives herself to countless male acquaintances. Now it's the big game hunter Lord Barrymore, who endures with his wealth.
Octavio has now ended his military career and feel Giuditta on in the establishment. His hope that he could win the Beautiful again for itself, is doomed to failure.
Fifth image
Bar in a European luxury hotel
In the last five years Octavio longing for Giuditta is completely cooled. He is now working as a bar pianist in a hotel and earns just enough to be able to keep their heads above water. As luck would have it, the fate Giudittas steers way in this very bar She will be accompanied by a veritable Duke, her umpteenth lover. Suddenly her passion for Octavio inflamed again, but that is a broken man and wants nothing more to do with her.
Style
As with other later works Lehár's Giuditta also lacks the other for the entertainment genre of operetta typical happy endings, because Lehár and his librettists have here the attempt made to interweave the operetta with elements of grand opera. The result is a hybrid, which is actually no more operetta, but also can not be referred to as Opera, even if the work was, in this respect, ennobled by the world première Vienna State Opera, where many great operas had their first performance.
Despite these stylistic ambivalence Lehár have invaded a wealth of beautiful melodies here, especially Octavio's aria friends, life is worth living, the aria of the heroine My lips kissing so hot, two indestructible ear worms that or again and again by the greatest tenors. sopranos are presented in concerts. The instrumentation reminds often of Puccini.