The Count of Luxembourg

Franz Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg (Der Graf von Luxemburg), an operetta in 2 acts. Libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Robert Bodanzki. Translation by Ramutė Skučaitė. Premiere: 1 March 2024.

What is this operetta about? How a well-chosen marriage can make you a member of the nobility. How that same marriage can help a noble spendthrift amass a pile of money. And how a cleverly devised marriage scheme is thwarted by … love. All of this takes place more than a hundred years ago—in Paris!

The operetta The Count of Luxembourg has retained its popularity more than 110 years after its first production, and each new interpretation captivates new generations of audiences. Its world premiere took place on 12 November 1909 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. The libretto reflects the atmosphere of Paris in the first decade of the 20th century, along with the music characteristic of that period. The production was a remarkable success—the audience demanded encores of every musical number. The first production was performed 300 times. The operetta quickly crossed Austria’s borders, attracting great interest on European stages and later throughout the world.

F. Lehár developed the operetta genre, which had grown popular in the late 19th century, with new rhythms and melodies and a new approach to characterisation, shaping a somewhat different type: the New Viennese operetta. Imre Kálmán continued the genre reform he had begun.

The operetta The Count of Luxembourg was first staged in Lithuania in 1942 at the State Theatre. It later received four more interpretations on the Kaunas stage—in 1944, 1963, 1985 and 2002.