Two melodious intermezzos for orchestra are often played by salon and pop orchestras. The first comes between the first and second acts and is in a languorous mood. The second, heard between the second and third acts, opens with a light subject and continues with a broadly lyrical episode. A third popular orchestral excerpt from this opera is the dramatic “Dance of the Camorristi” during a revel in the Camorristi hideout in the opening of the third act.
As an opera The Secret of Suzanne (Il Segreto di Susanna) is a trifle. The libretto by Enrico Golisciani concerns a terrible secret harbored by the heroine, Suzanne: she is addicted to smoking. Since her husband finds cigarette butts in their house he suspects her of entertaining a lover during his absence. Spying on her through the window, one day, he learns about his wife’s secret to his infinite relief, and does not hesitate to join her in a smoke. Light, breezy, infectious, and unpretentious, this little opera has been a favorite with operagoers everywhere since its world première in Munich on December 4, 1909.
The overture is as gay and as capricious as this merry tale. It begins vivaciously with the main theme in first violins and the woodwind. After this idea has been elaborated upon, a second melody is heard in the flute and clarinet accompanied by strings. The two melodies are soon merged contrapuntally, with the first theme heard in woodwinds and trumpet and the second in the strings.
Sebastián Yradier
Sebastián Yradier was born in Sauciego, Álava, Spain on January 20, 1809. Little is known of his career beyond the fact that his music instruction took place with private teachers; that in 1851 he was appointed singing master to the Empress Eugénie in Paris; and that for a period he lived in Cuba. He died in Vitoria, Spain, on December 6, 1865. He was a successful composer of Spanish songs. The most famous is “La Paloma,” which is in the habanera rhythm, its melody in the sensual, sinuous style of a flamenco song. “El Arreglito,” also a habanera, was borrowed by Bizet for his opera Carmen where it re-emerges as the world-famous “Habanera”; Bizet made only minor changes in the melody while retaining Yradier’s tonality and accompaniment. A third popular Yradier song, in a style similar to “La Paloma,” is “Ay Chiquita!”
Carl Zeller
Carl Zeller was born in St. Peter-in-der-Au, Austria on July 19, 1842. Music, the study of which he had pursued since boyhood with private teachers, was an avocation. He earned his living as an official in the Ministry of Education in Austria. Nevertheless, he managed to write many operettas, two of which were among the most successful written in Austria during his time. Among his first works for the stage were Joconde (1876), Die Carbonari (1880), and Der Vagabund (1886). His first major success came with Der Vogelhaendler in 1886, still a great favorite on the Continent. The second of his operetta classics, Der Obersteiger, was introduced in 1894. A later successful, though less well known, operetta, Der Kellermeister, was produced posthumously in 1901. Zeller died in Baden near Vienna on August 17, 1898.
Der Obersteiger (The Master Miner)—book by M. West and L. Held—received its première in Vienna on January 5, 1894. The setting is a salt-mining district of Austria in or about 1840. Martin instigates a strike among the miners, for which he is deprived of his job. To support himself he organizes a band of musicians from among the miners and tours the country. Eventually Martin returns to his mining town where he finally manages to regain his job and to win Nelly, with whom he has always been in love. The most popular song in the operetta is Martin’s air with chorus, “Wo sie war, die Muellerin,” and its most delightful waltz is “Trauet nie dem blossen schein.”
Der Vogelhaendler (The Bird-Seller), once again with a book by M. West and L. Held, was first heard in Vienna on January 10, 1891; but in 1933 it was presented in a new version in Munich adapted by Quedenfelt, Brugmann and Bauckner. In the Rhine Palatinate in the 18th century, Adam, a wandering bird-seller, is in love with Christel, but she refuses to consider marriage unless he gets a permanent job. He gets that job on the estate of the Elector Palatine at which point Christel is all too willing to give up a projected marriage with Count Stanislaus for the sake of her beloved Adam. The lovable melodies from this operetta—in the best traditions of Suppé and Johann Strauss II—have made it a favorite not only in Germany and Austria, but also throughout the rest of Europe, in North and South America, and in South Africa. Among the musical highlights of this operetta are the waltz “Schau mir nur recht ins Gesicht”; the “Nightingale Song” (“Wie mein Ahn’l zwanzig Jahr”); the pert march tune “Kaempfe nie mit Frau’n”; and Christel’s sprightly air, “Ich bin die Christel von der Post.”