Gypsy Love (operetta)

For other uses, see Gypsy Love.

Gypsy Love, sometimes spelled Gipsy Love, (German: Zigeunerliebe) is an operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár with a German-language libretto by Alfred Willner and Robert Bodanzky. Premiered in Vienna in 1910, the operetta's plot centres on the daughter of a Romanian landowner who is engaged to a young nobleman but is attracted to a Romani violinist, her intended's half-brother; complications ensue at her engagement party, and she sees her future in a dream. The brooding, romantic story is accompanied by a score that focuses on dance music.

Gypsy Love has been translated into various languages. In 1910 the operetta had its first performance outside Austria in Budapest in Hungarian. The piece continues to be played regularly in Eastern Europe. In 1911 a production toured France in a French translation by Henry Gauthier-Villars and Jean Bénédict. A. H. Woods produced an English version using a libretto and lyrics by Harry B. Smith and Robert B. Smith that had a short Broadway run in 1911 before touring the United States into 1913. This production made a star of the actor and tenor Arthur Albro as the gypsy violinist. Albro starred in varying productions of Gypsy Love in the United States into the early 1920s; most of them produced by Andreas Dippel.

George Edwardes produced the piece as Gipsy Love in 1912, in London, with a new English libretto by Basil Hood and lyrics by Adrian Ross. The plot bore little resemblance to the original story. With the aid of Lehar, the score was vastly modified with many songs removed entirely, others reassigned to different characters, and several new songs added in the style of Edwardian musical comedy. The resulting work contained only superficial similarities to the original operetta. It had a run of 299 performances in London in 1912 and toured in Britain the following year. In 1914 this version toured Australia produced by J. C. Williamson.

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