The tea flower
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| Title: | The tea flower |
| Original title: | La fleur du thé |
| Shape: | operetta |
| Original language: | French |
| Music: | Alexandre Charles Lecocq |
| Libretto : | Alfred Duru, Henri Chivot |
| Premiere: | April 10, 1868 |
| Place of premiere: | Athénée-Comique, Paris |
| Place and time of the action: | a port city in China around 1860 |
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Die Teeblume (“La fleur du thé”) is an operetta ( Opera buffa ) in three acts by the composer Alexandre Charles Lecocq ; for the libretto recorded Henri Chivot and Alfred Duru responsible. On April 11, 1868, this play had its premiere at the Théâtre l'Athénée-Comique in Paris .
action
- Act 1 - harbor pub with a view of the ships
Teeblume, the daughter of Mandarin Fa-Sching, was driven by curiosity and ran out of her father's palace. Since such behavior is forbidden by imperial decree, Fa-Sching, who is also head of the police, tries to find his daughter again. His future son-in-law, Captain Sching-Yong, helps him with this. In the meantime, Teeblume has become scared and takes refuge in a harbor bar.
This is led by the former ship's cook of the HMS Medusa (an imperial warship), Pastinak, and his jealous wife Portiunka. Parsnip becomes aware of tea flower and when he notices the mandarin with his captain in front of the house, he hides tea flower in his bedroom. There she discovers Portiunka and jealously pulls her back into the taproom. In the meantime, Mandarin and Hauptmann have entered and are receiving Tea Flower.
Another imperial decree obliges every man to marry a woman immediately if she is in public without permission and he was the first to speak to her. When Fa-Sching has his daughter taken away by the captain, he explains it within earshot of Portiunka's parsnip. Furious with jealousy, Portiunka then makes a terrible scene for her husband and locks him in the cellar. When the mandarin comes back a little later, he frees parsnip and takes it with him.
- Act 2 - reception hall in the mandarin's palace
Fa-Sching forces Parsnip to marry Tea Flower immediately. Even Parsinak's objection that he is already married does not help, as polygamy is not a crime in China. In the meantime Portiunka has secretly sneaked into the palace of Fa-Shing and can speak with tea flower.
Since Teeblume loves Captain Sching-Yong and not the ship's cook Parsnip, Portiunka calms down and both women now agree to save Parsnip. In order to deceive Captain Sching-Yong, who is supposed to guard the tea flower, the two women exchange their clothes. The captain notices nothing and now has Portiunka (disguised as a tea flower) brought to the waiting groom in the wedding hall.
- Act 3 - Small room in the mandarin's palace
Parsinak spent the wedding night with his new wife and since Portiunka sneaks away before dawn, he too hadn't noticed the exchange of wives. When Fa-Shing and Shing-Yong were arguing over breakfast, they were amazed to discover that Tea Flower must have stayed in their room all night.
Fa-Sching now accuses Parsnip of having spurned his daughter and sees this as an insult. Since another imperial decree provides for the immediate death penalty for insulting imperial officials - including mandarins - Fa-Sching has parsnips dragged to the place of execution on the spot. In the meantime, however, Sching-Yong has rushed to the port and alerted the marines on the HMS Medusa. They are now coming to free their former ship's cook. Fa-Sching realizes his mistake and everyone celebrates happily in the harbor bar.
literature
- Leo Melitz: Guide through the operettas . Globus-Verlag, Berlin 1917, pp. 217-218.
- John H. Warrack, John Ewan: The Oxford dictionary of opera . University Press, Oxford 1997, ISBN 0-19-869164-5 .