Synopsis

The action takes place on one of the many country estates owned by the Countess Maritza. This one is located in a Balkan country near the border with Hungary.

ACT I An outdoor terrace
The servant Tschekko and the Gypsy Berko sit listening to the offstage voice of Manja singing (Luck is a golden dream). They discuss the faraway Countess and comment on how the Gypsy girl tries to attract the new farm manager without success. When Manja enters she says the manager comes from a long way off, where the Danube is blue (i.e. Vienna) not grey and dirty as it is here.

A visitor, Baron Karl Stephan Liebenberg enters followed by the farm manager Count Tassilo Endrödy-Wittenburg, who is using the alias Béla Törek. Tassilo's father had amassed great debts from gambling and, to clear his name, Tassilo has asked Karl Stephan to see to selling all of the property he interited. Instead of asking his aunt, herself in financial trouble, for help, he has taken this job as farm manager. Karl Stephan announces that all has been sold and the creditors paid off. Although he is now penniless, Tassilo is happy. He is living in a beautiful place and will stay on the job until he has earned enough to give his sister Lisa a dowry. (He doesn't want her to know what he has been doing.) He sings nostalgically of his old life in Vienna (Vienna Mine).

Tschekka announces a new arrival, the Romanian Prince Popolescu who announces the immanent arrival of the Countess Maritza and her guests and orders that dinner for thirty and Gypsy music to be ready in one hour. He shows Tassilo a newspaper with the announcement of the engagement of the Countess to Baron Koloman Zsupan; every nobleman in Romania is thinking of suicide.

The entourage arrives, welcomed by farm employees (Set the Gypsy music playing). Maritza greets them, gives them all a raise in pay, and calls for the Gypsies to play a csárdás (When I hear that Gypsy music). She announces that, although her fiancé is not present, the engagement will be celebrated at six that evening.

Tassilo enters, now dressed as a gentleman, and introduces himself to Maritza. When she asks about his previous experience, he says it was on the estate of the late Count Enrödy-Wittenberg (actually his father). He is dismayed when she tells him Lisa is with the group. After the guests go into the house leaving Tassilo alone, Lisa appears and is astonished to learn 'Mr. Törek' is actually her brother. He tells her of his disguise, saying it is the result of a bet. They recall their childhood together (Childhood Memories).

After they leave together, Maritza and her friend Ilka appear. Maritza confides that her fiancé doesn't really exist. She made him up because she was so tired of all the men chasing her for her money. Just then, Tschekko announces the real Baron Koloman Zsupan, an elegant dandy in Hungarian dress, who has read of his engagement and has come to meet his bride-to-be. He refutes Maritza's suggestion that there is another Baron Zsupan and is delighted when she confesses her ruse; he has finally found the girl he has been dreaming of all his life. They will have an ideal life together on his pig farm in Varasdin (Let's go to Varasdin).

ACT I Finale
Tassilo has shown Lisa the estate. Tschekko comes out with the champagne Maritza has instructed her manager be given on this special evening. As he drinks, Tassilo thinks of his lost days as a wealthy csárdás cavalier (Play, Gypsy) and ends by dancing a csárdás. Maritza has heard him and asks him to repeat his song for her guests. When he refuses, she haughtily dismisses him, and he leaves. The guests all decide to go to a cabaret. Before they leave, Manja asks for a word with Maritza, offering to read her palm. She will find love during a fleeting moon (i.e. within a month) with a handsome man with a noble name. On hearing this she decides to stay behind. She values her independence and doesn't want to risk meeting such a man. The others leave, promising to return in four weeks. When Tassilo arrives to say goodbye, she realizes she was too hasty in dismissing him. Thinking she is safe with him because he does not have a noble name, she asks him to stay and be her friend (Reprise of Play Gypsy).

ACT II The drawing room of Maritza's house. Four weeks later.
The lady guests have returned and cluster around the only available man, Tassilo, distracting him from his duties to the annoyance of Maritza. He tries to get her to talk about farm finances, but they are interrupted by a phone call from Prince Popolescu announcing that the four weeks are over, and he has arranged a reunion at in improvised cabaret at her house. Maritza is not interested. She would rather have Tassilo escort the ladies to a supper party and is delighted when she discovers he has a tail coat for the occasion. As they leave, the phone rings and Lisa answers it. It sounds like Zsupan calling from Varasdin but is really his valet imitating him. He is actually in the house and suddenly appears, still pining for Maritza. Noticing that Lisa seems unhappy, he tells her if he wasn't so crazy for Maritza he'd would spend all night dreaming of her (When I start dreaming). She responds in kind, they dance together and leave.

Maritza enters in evening dress and is joined by Tassilo, dressed in tails but carrying the estate accounts. He is distracted from giving his reports by her appearance, and she suggests they make believe they are together at a ball. He plays along and tells her he feels sorry for her because she is afraid all men are after her money. In turn she asks what he would do if he were a man in whom she could believe, and he admits he might get carried away and find his heart beating wildly. They become aware of being attracted to each other (Waltz our worries away).

Zsupan enters. He has discovered an impediment to his 'engagement' to Maritza. If he marries anyone but a poor girl, he will lose all of his own inheritance to a hospital for dogs.

The scene changes to the café setting that Popolescu has arranged. All the guests are present (Corks a-popping). They ask Maritza if the Gypsy's prophecy has come true yet. She refuses to say but admits she is very happy. She asks Tassilo to join the party, but he is upset by the patronizing manner of the other men. Alone, he starts to write a letter. Maritza returns to find out why he does not join the party and asks him to tell her about himself. He tries to invent an imaginary poor childhood but keeps contradicting himself. She tells him she is more comfortable in his company than with all her society friends and asks how he would talk to her if she were someone from his own background. He would take her out for the evening and tell her he loved her (By mine, my love, be mine).

Tassilo leaves and Popolescu returns to tell Maritza how he has observed Tassilo and Lisa together hand in hand. He suspects the manager is not what he seems; he has manners that take four or five hundred years to learn! Spotting the letter Tassilo had started, he reads it aloud. Tassilo has written that he is swallowing insults in order to gain money for a dowry and for a better future for himself. Devastated, Maritza believes he is interested in her money after all and vows she will make him pay.

Zsupan and Lisa meet; he realizes he loves her, but she has decided to have nothing to do with him.

ACT II Finale
An unhappy Maritza enters, urging the Gypsies to play, and she denounces Tassilo, throwing a boxful of banknotes at him. Angrily he throws the money at the guests and Gypsies. Then Lisa runs up to him, he calls her sister and together they leave the amazed guests. Maritza realizes her mistake; Tassilo really loves her, not her money, and she calls on all to celebrate.

ACT III The next morning.
The guests are recovering from the party while the Gypsies play. Maritza in Hungarian peasant dress enters. She has to work because she has lost her farm manager. If Zsupan and Popolescu help her they can all go to the local tavern that evening where they will hear only traditional music (Nut-Brown Maiden). The men leave and Tassilo enters to say goodbye. He asks for a reference and Maritza asks him to dictate what to she should say. As she writes, she changes the words he is giving her. Without looking at it, he puts the letter in his pocket, and they leave.

Tschekko ushers in The Princess Bozena Cuddenstein (Tassilo's aunt), and her servant Penizek. Her doctor has ordered her not to have any emotions so she has hired Penizek to emote for her.

Tassilo appears and his aunt tells him that the Texan who bought his stables has found oil on her land. She is now a millionairess and has bought back everything that Karl Stephan sold for him. She has also found him a wife, very rich and tall, who hides her ugliness by always wearing a hooded black cloak. However, he confesses he loves someone else and leaves. The Princess commissions Penizek to discover his relationship with Maritza. Thinking, because of her dress, that Maritza is a servant, he asks her about Count Tassilo. She tells him 'Maritza' thought Tassilo was just after her money and showed him the door. After some more confusion all the facts come out and identities are established. Zsupan is delighted when he discovers that Lisa is poor (she hasn't discovered the truth yet), and they can marry without his money going to the dogs.

Maritza suggests Tassilo read the 'reference' she wrote for him in which she implies she would like him for a husband. Both couples happily announce their engagements and, in true Viennese operetta tradition, they waltz as the curtain falls.

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Revised October 2005
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