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After her family is impoverished by the tax collector Ma, Haitang is sold into a brothel and later becomes his second wife, bearing a son. Ma is poisoned by his first wife Yü-Pei, who frames Haitang and claims the child. Before Emperor Pao, both women must pull the child from a chalk circle; Haitang refuses to hurt him, revealing herself as his true mother. Pao learns the child is his and makes Haitang his wife.
In ancient Lydia, King Kandaules wants to share his wealth and wife Nyssia with his favorites. A fisherman, Gyges, gains a ring of invisibility and secretly spends a night with the queen; after learning his identity, Nyssia orders him to kill the king and takes him as her successor.
Görge abandons his arranged marriage to pursue a dream of a princess. Years later, living in poverty with Gertraud, he refuses to abandon her when villagers ask him to lead a revolt; the couple escape a mob and eventually return to his home village, where their life fulfills his earlier dream.
At the Infanta Donna Clara’s birthday party, a sultan’s gift of a dwarf arrives. Unaware of his appearance, he falls in love with her and imagines himself her knight. The Infanta gives him a white rose, which he takes as a sign of affection. After seeing his reflection in a mirror, he asks her for love and a kiss; she rejects him as a monster, and he dies as the party continues.
Simone returns from a business trip and finds Prince Guido with his wife Bianca. He offers Guido everything in his house, and Guido chooses Bianca. Simone later overhears Bianca wishing him dead, then lets the lovers declare their devotion before challenging Guido to a fight. Simone kills him, and Bianca embraces her husband as the two reconcile.
A German-language fairy-tale opera by Alexander von Zemlinsky in a prologue and three acts, adapted from Holger Drachmann’s play Der var engang through Marie von Borch’s German translation.
After her family is impoverished by the tax collector Ma, Haitang is sold into a brothel and later becomes his second wife, bearing a son. Ma is poisoned by his first wife Yü-Pei, who frames Haitang and claims the child. Before Emperor Pao, both women must pull the child from a chalk circle; Haitang refuses to hurt him, revealing herself as his true mother. Pao learns the child is his and makes Haitang his wife.
In ancient Lydia, King Kandaules wants to share his wealth and wife Nyssia with his favorites. A fisherman, Gyges, gains a ring of invisibility and secretly spends a night with the queen; after learning his identity, Nyssia orders him to kill the king and takes him as her successor.
Görge abandons his arranged marriage to pursue a dream of a princess. Years later, living in poverty with Gertraud, he refuses to abandon her when villagers ask him to lead a revolt; the couple escape a mob and eventually return to his home village, where their life fulfills his earlier dream.
At the Infanta Donna Clara’s birthday party, a sultan’s gift of a dwarf arrives. Unaware of his appearance, he falls in love with her and imagines himself her knight. The Infanta gives him a white rose, which he takes as a sign of affection. After seeing his reflection in a mirror, he asks her for love and a kiss; she rejects him as a monster, and he dies as the party continues.
Simone returns from a business trip and finds Prince Guido with his wife Bianca. He offers Guido everything in his house, and Guido chooses Bianca. Simone later overhears Bianca wishing him dead, then lets the lovers declare their devotion before challenging Guido to a fight. Simone kills him, and Bianca embraces her husband as the two reconcile.
A German-language fairy-tale opera by Alexander von Zemlinsky in a prologue and three acts, adapted from Holger Drachmann’s play Der var engang through Marie von Borch’s German translation.
Tailor’s apprentice Wenzel Strapinski is mistaken for a count when a coachman delivers him to Goldach. He falls in love with Nettchen but is exposed as an impostor by her rejected suitor; Nettchen chooses to marry him even if that means becoming a tailor’s wife.