Giuditta

Comrades, this is the life for me

Giuditta is the opera that crowned Lehár’s long career in the musical theatre. Too serious to be termed an operetta, it was written for no less distinguished an opera house than the Staatsoper in Vienna where its first performance in January 1934 was relayed to 120 radio stations round the world - not least because of international interest in Richard Tauber, who was singing the male lead role of the army captain Octavio. His “Freunde, das Leben ist lebenswert” (Comrades, this is the life for me) comes from the first scene, just before the love of his life, Giuditta, is moved to leave her dull old husband to follow him to North Africa. If he had been aware at this stage what heartbreak the beautiful Giuditta was to cause him - she is Lehár’s Spanish-Moroccan equivalent of Carmen - he would not have been quite as positive he is in this characteristically ecstatic and lavishly orchestrated “Tauber Lied.”