About the work
Der fidele Bauer (The Merry Farmer) is an operetta in a prologue and two acts by Leo Fall, to a libretto by Victor Léon. It premiered on 27 July 1907 as part of the operetta festival at the Grand Ducal Court Theatre in Mannheim, conducted by Robert Stolz, and became Fall's first major stage success.
Plot
The widowed farmer Matthäus Scheichelreuther sends his son Stefan off to study theology, but Stefan secretly becomes a doctor and returns years later as an arrogant academic who gets engaged to a refined woman from Berlin without inviting his family. Hurt, the father adopts the illegitimate son of the dairymaid Lisi. When Stefan's wife Friederike later treats the villagers with warmth and openness during a visit, Stefan is finally reconciled with his origins and his father.
Cultural significance
The work established Fall's reputation as an operetta composer and quickly transferred to the Theater an der Wien and Berlin's Theater des Westens. Its best-known number remains the song Heinerle, heinerle, hab kein Geld, in which a mother pleads for money for her child.