About the work
A comic opera (Spieloper) in three acts; Lortzing wrote both music and libretto after the French vaudeville "Casanova au Fort St. André" by Charles Voirin, Étienne Arago and Armand Chapeau. It premiered on 31 December 1841 at the Stadttheater Leipzig, where Lortzing himself sang the role of Gambetto.
Plot
The officer Casanova arrives on the island of Murano and causes a stir with a duelling affair; his presence draws the interest of several women, including the jailer's daughter Bettina and the masked Rosaura, the commandant's niece, who is already promised to a wealthy Venetian. To be near Rosaura, Casanova breaks out of custody.
Cultural significance
The work largely vanished from the repertoire after its premiere and is now considered a rarity among Lortzing's comic operas; the Musikalische Komödie Leipzig revived it in 2018 to considerable press attention.