About the work
Clivia is an operetta in three acts by Nico Dostal to a libretto by Charles Amberg, and the composer's first operetta. It premiered on 23 December 1933 at the Theater am Nollendorfplatz in Berlin, with Lillie Claus, later Dostal's wife, in the title role and the tenor Walter Jankuhn as the president.
Plot
The setting is Boliguay, a fictional South American republic of the 1930s. The American financier Patterton arrives with a film crew around the star Clivia Gray, planning to use the shoot as cover for a political coup; to obtain permission to film in the country, Clivia enters a sham marriage with the gaucho Juan Damigo, with whom she soon falls in love. When the plot is exposed, Juan reveals himself as President Olivero, puts Clivia's feelings to the test – and she decides to stay and turn the sham marriage into a real one.
Cultural significance
Clivia was Dostal's breakthrough as a stage composer; it is regarded as his most successful work and was taken up by more than a hundred theatres within its first year. The score combines South American dance rhythms with lyrical operetta melody; one well-known number is “Ich bin verliebt”. A film version directed by Karl Anton was released in 1954.