Schön ist die Welt

The emergence of mountain film melodramas in the cinema of the 1920s/30s inspired Franz Lehár to create a fine and original
operetta with an opulent musical structure, colourful images of nature and lively dances ranging from waltz and slow fox to tango and rumba.
When two people climb the summit together and are kept away from civilization for a whole night by a gigantic avalanche, it is a classic case of “force majeure”. Love has thwarted the marriage plans of the blue-blooded parents of Princess Elisabeth and Crown Prince Georg and yet has led the unruly children to exactly where they should have ended up in the strategic plans of their ancestors. Incognito and out in the wild, the two have met by chance, each on the run from the demands of their parents’ generation. The latter has gathered at a fashionable mountain hotel in order to link the two noble families together economically through marriage. But the offspring refuse to follow their parents’ plans.

Franz Lehár’s new version of the operetta Endlich allein, premiered in Vienna in 1914 and first performed at the Metropoltheater in Berlin in 1930, was tailored entirely to the vocal dream couple Richard Tauber and Gitta Alpar.
For some years now, the Alpine operetta has been experiencing a renaissance – mostly in concert form.
Director Florian Kutej will prove for Graz Opera that Schön ist die Welt makes the Alps glow all the more in a staged performance.