About the work
Beata is a one-act operetta by Stanisław Moniuszko with a libretto by Jan Chęciński, composed in Warsaw in 1871. It premiered at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw on 2 February 1872, becoming Moniuszko's last completed work barely four months before his death.
Plot
In a snowbound mountain village, the soldier Maurycy returns from war to his fiancée Beata, who has just recovered from smallpox and fears her scarred face will repel him. To ease her worry, Maurycy pretends to have gone blind, so that, he tells her, her appearance can no longer matter to him.
Cultural significance
Contemporary critics barely noticed the operetta; one reviewer judged it comic in intent without situations that were actually funny. As Moniuszko's last completed work before his death only months later, Beata remained overshadowed by his major operas and is still rarely staged or recorded today.