Der Obersteiger: “Sei nicht bös” (Don’t be cross)

Though once a member of the Vienna Boys’ Choir and an obviously promising musician in his youth, Carl Zeller decided not to devote his adult life exclusively to music. Even so, as a full-time and high-ranking civil servant, he helped to revive the declining fortune of Viennese operetta in the early 1890s with Der Vogelhändler (The Bird handler) and wrote an equally successful example, Der Obersteiger (The Master Miner) in 1894. The most popular number in the latter work, “Sei nicht bös” (Don’t be cross), is actually a tenor aria – sung in the original by Martin, a foreman miner to his indecisive girlfriend Nelly – but ever since Elisabeth Schumann took a liking to its disarming waltz-time melody, it has become a favourite soprano item. It probably sounds even better that way.