Page 266 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2021. Opereta med obema svetovnima vojnama ▪︎ Operetta between the Two World Wars. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 5
P. 266
opereta med obema svetovnima vojnama
Polska! Polska! or in Staschek’s song Die verflixten Weiber, one of the oper-
etta’s main hits, which returns as a recapitulation at the end of the work. The
krakowiak, a dance from southern Poland whose name is associated with
the city of Krakow, can be, in turn, linked to the plot’s setting – the border
areas of Russian and Austrian partitions, which can be quite precisely es-
tablished and located on the map. The runaway couple (Jadja and Boleslav)
were supposed to get married in nearby Jarosław, out of reach of the Rus-
sian secret police. Jarosław is a Polish town situated between Krakow and
Lvov, located within the Austrian territory before World War I, and the
maps from this period show that the frontier between Austria and Russia
was demarcated near Jarosław. The krakowiak appears in the plot as early
as the beginning of Act I, as one of the first manifestations of local colour,
in Suza and Casimir’s duet written in the rhythm of a krakowiak (Du hast
rote Backen, No. 3). This presentation of the dance, as well as other mani-
festations over the course of the work, contains all the rhythmic-metrical
features of the krakowiak, including the characteristic syncopated element.
The presence of the polonaise, in turn, whose name unambiguously
indicates a Polish background, has been reserved for the beginning of Act
II (No. 9 Polonaise und Chor). The solemn character of this dance, addition-
ally highlighted with the sound of trumpets and percussion instruments,
corresponds well with the wedding ceremony that takes place in the sec-
ond act of the operetta. What is also important is the text of this polonaise,
performed by a chorus of wedding guests: “Noch ist Polen nicht verloren,
heißt’s im alten Heimatlied” (Poland has not perished yet, as an old patriot-
ic song said). This is a quote from the lyrics of Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, a pa-
triotic song “Poland has not perished yet” in a commonly known German
translation. The song, associated with the activity of Polish Legions in Ita-
ly (at the turn of 18th and 19th centuries) under the command of Jan Henryk
Dąbrowski, obtained the status of the Polish national anthem in 1927 (i.e.
ten years before the premiere of Polnische Hochzeit), a status it still retains.
The lyrics of Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, cited here out of the musical quota-
tion context, play the role of a recollection of Polish tradition, and the char-
acter of these national issues becomes combined with the situation depict-
ed in the operetta [Table 2].
A particularly interesting episode in the operetta, abundant in allu-
sions to Polish music culture, is the finale of Act II, when an attractive and
elaborate wedding ceremony takes place. In the musical layer there appear
quotations from popular songs, still strongly rooted in Polish culture: “O
264
Polska! Polska! or in Staschek’s song Die verflixten Weiber, one of the oper-
etta’s main hits, which returns as a recapitulation at the end of the work. The
krakowiak, a dance from southern Poland whose name is associated with
the city of Krakow, can be, in turn, linked to the plot’s setting – the border
areas of Russian and Austrian partitions, which can be quite precisely es-
tablished and located on the map. The runaway couple (Jadja and Boleslav)
were supposed to get married in nearby Jarosław, out of reach of the Rus-
sian secret police. Jarosław is a Polish town situated between Krakow and
Lvov, located within the Austrian territory before World War I, and the
maps from this period show that the frontier between Austria and Russia
was demarcated near Jarosław. The krakowiak appears in the plot as early
as the beginning of Act I, as one of the first manifestations of local colour,
in Suza and Casimir’s duet written in the rhythm of a krakowiak (Du hast
rote Backen, No. 3). This presentation of the dance, as well as other mani-
festations over the course of the work, contains all the rhythmic-metrical
features of the krakowiak, including the characteristic syncopated element.
The presence of the polonaise, in turn, whose name unambiguously
indicates a Polish background, has been reserved for the beginning of Act
II (No. 9 Polonaise und Chor). The solemn character of this dance, addition-
ally highlighted with the sound of trumpets and percussion instruments,
corresponds well with the wedding ceremony that takes place in the sec-
ond act of the operetta. What is also important is the text of this polonaise,
performed by a chorus of wedding guests: “Noch ist Polen nicht verloren,
heißt’s im alten Heimatlied” (Poland has not perished yet, as an old patriot-
ic song said). This is a quote from the lyrics of Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, a pa-
triotic song “Poland has not perished yet” in a commonly known German
translation. The song, associated with the activity of Polish Legions in Ita-
ly (at the turn of 18th and 19th centuries) under the command of Jan Henryk
Dąbrowski, obtained the status of the Polish national anthem in 1927 (i.e.
ten years before the premiere of Polnische Hochzeit), a status it still retains.
The lyrics of Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, cited here out of the musical quota-
tion context, play the role of a recollection of Polish tradition, and the char-
acter of these national issues becomes combined with the situation depict-
ed in the operetta [Table 2].
A particularly interesting episode in the operetta, abundant in allu-
sions to Polish music culture, is the finale of Act II, when an attractive and
elaborate wedding ceremony takes place. In the musical layer there appear
quotations from popular songs, still strongly rooted in Polish culture: “O
264
