Harald Serafin
The Gypsy Baron (German: Der Zigeunerbaron) is an operetta in three acts by Johann Strauss II which premiered at the Theater an der Wien on 24 October 1885. Its libretto was by the author Ignaz Schnitzer (de) and in turn was based on Sáffi by Mór Jókai. During the composer's lifetime, the operetta enjoyed great success, second only to the popularity of Die Fledermaus. The scoring and the nature of Strauss's music have also led many music critics to consider this work a comic opera or a lyric opera.
Ralf Benatzkys immensely popular operetta Im weissen Rossl premiered in Germany in 1930, followed by London the following year and Paris in the latter half of the decade. It made it to the US where it played under another name on the Great White Way. This echt-Austrian work had first been popularized as a play shortly before the turn of the 20th c. This 2008 staging was celebrated as a reference performance for future attempts. Directed by Rolf Langenfass and conducted by Rudolf Bibl, the cast includes Harald Serafin as the Austro-Hungarian head-of-state Kaiser Franz Joseph II.
Dagmar Schellenberger, Nikolai Schukoff, Harald Serafin, and Mirjana Irosch star in this production of the Kalman operetta with Rudolf Bibl conducting the Festival Orchestra Moerbisch.
