Dresden claims the honour of having first represented the celebrated Polish pianist's opera.
The performance took place on May 29th 1901, and a closely packed house showed its approbation in the most enthusiastic manner.
Those who will look out for reminiscences in every new piece of music find of course that Paderewski is an imitator of Wagner, but though Manru would probably not have been written without the composer's intimate knowledge of the Ring of Nibelungen, the melodies and rythm are entirely his own. The music is true gypsy music with very much movement and highly phantastic colouring, reminding us sometimes of Liszt and Bizet.
The best parts of the opera are the choruses of the village maidens in the first act, the charming cradle song, the violin solo and the love-duet in the second and the splendid gipsy music in the last act.
Nossig's libretto is very inferior to the music; its rhymes are often absolutely trivial. The scene is laid in the Hungarian Tatra mountain district.
Manru a wandering gipsy has fallen in love with a peasant girl Ulana and has married her against her mother's wishes.
In the first act mother Hedwig laments her daughter's loss. While the village lasses are dancing and frolicking Ulana returns to her mother to ask her forgiveness; she is encouraged by a hunchback Urok, who is devoted to her, and who persuades the mother to forgive her child, on condition that she shall leave her husband. As Ulana refuses, though she is in dire need of bread, Hedwig sternly shuts her door upon her daughter. Ulana turns to Urok, who does his best to persuade her to leave her husband.
Urok is a philosopher; he warns the poor woman, that gipsy blood is never faithful, and that the time will come, when Manru will leave wife and child.
Ulana is frightened and finally obtains from Urok a love potion, by which she hopes to secure her husband's constancy.