(The Bird Seller) is an operetta in three acts by Carl Zeller with a libretto by and based on Victor Varin's and de Biéville's (1857). In 1891, Helen Tretbar translated the original German libretto into English and adapted it for performance in America as The Tyrolean.
Performance history
Der Vogelhandler was first performed on 10 January 1891 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna with the celebrated Viennese actor and singer, Alexander Girardi, in the title role. It also played at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London in 1895 and, as The Tyrolean, at the Casino Theatre in New York in 1891 for 100 performances.
The act 2 aria "" was recorded by the soprano Elisabeth Schumann.
Roles
Synopsis
The setting is historical fiction with artistic license, in 18th century lands around Heidelberg, which then constituted a district of the Holy Roman Empire governed by a Prince known as the Elector Palatine. The story is reset in a fictitious estate of the husband of the Electress, Princess Marie.
Der Vogelhändler is a bucolic comedy, set in the 18th-century Rhineland, featuring two lovers, Adam, a handsome bird seller from the Tyrol and Christel, the village postmistress. They, at cross-purposes, become involved in romantic complications at the Court of the reigning Prince. After a number of intrigues and misunderstandings, all ends happily.
The story is also a tale of people from different cultures and backgrounds learning to live together. The bird-seller comes from a culture quite different from that of the postal clerk. The ending, in which the Court joins the Tyroleans in dancing the Laendler and the bird seller greets his new neighbors in Tyrolean dialect, represents a triumph of cross-cultural integration and friendship.
Act 1
The mayor is at his wit's end because he cannot supply the Elector with the wild boar and the ceremonial maiden required to perform during an upcoming festival. A waitress suggests that Christel, the postal clerk, might be willing to volunteer to be the ceremonial maiden because she is promised to Adam, a bird-seller from the Tyrol, who cannot afford to move into her community to forward their engagement. Wishing to please Christel, Adam offers Weps a yellow adult bird from the Tyrol as a bribe toward being considered for an in-town work assignment. Meanwhile, Stanislaus, a guards officer, is attempting to get out of debt. When the master of the hunt finds out that the Elector will not be coming to the festival, he is greedy for the purse which the Elector has sent to use as an honorarium to pay the ceremonial maiden. Stanislaus suggests that he impersonate the Elector.
Electress-Princess Marie arrives in disguise with Adelaide because she believes that the Elector is coming to the festival for no other reason than to be alone with the ceremonial maiden. Christel tells Adam that she plans to petition the Court to find him employment so that he can move here to forward their engagement. Adam, believing that a Tyrolean man bears the sole responsibility to fight his own fight to be able to support the wife he has chosen, asks her not to do this. Christel ends up in the pavilion with Stanislaus, believing him to be the Elector. Adam arrives at the festival to find the master of the hunt and the mayor informing him that Christel is the ceremonial maiden and is therefore not in the crowd. Marie, hoping to save Adam from embarrassment, offers him the bouquet of roses which she has brought in case her plan to become the ceremonial maiden, thus catching her husband, inflagrante, works out. Adam, thinking of his own Tyrolen behavior code, somehow believes himself to have been promised to Marie and Christel to have been promised to the Elector. He publicly breaks off his engagement to Christel.