Leichte Kavallerie

Libretto by Hans Bodenstedt; new musical arrangement by Horst Platen (rev.1952) (G)

2S,2T,comic actors; chorus; ballet;
2(II=picc).2.2.3sax.2-4.2.3.0-timp.perc-harp-pft-cel-strings

Reception hall in the town castle of Bredereck and hall and courtyard at the vegetable garden in the castle of Rheinfels around 1750

In the palace of the Baron von Bredereck a group in opposition to Earl Adolar von Rheinfels discuss what can be done about the way he gives preference to his mistresses. For since he became a slave of the dancer Countess Ilonka Csikos ("a Lola Montez type"), he has been ruining the state's finances in order to fund her ballet company, the "light cavalry" as people mockingly refer to it. In addition, he endangers the political balance, revoking all old alliances and, for Ilonka's sake, fraternizing with the Hungarian Pandures. Hans-Wolf von Athen, a genuine German man through and through (who was once in Ilona's hands, when he was still lieutenant of the queen of Hungary), has – as Adolar has been told – recruited a real cavalry in the surrounding principalities in order to drive the Pandures and their un-German, dissolute life from the principality of Rheinfels. Adolar tries to win over Earl Benecke as a commander against the rebels, but Benecke refuses to obey. Hans-Wolf turns up at Benecke's incognito and confesses that there is no cavalry because none of his allies takes Earl Adolar seriously anymore and therefore no one wants to provide soldiers. The situation is serious, but not without hope…