About the work
Der Stier von Olivera is an opera in three acts by Eugen d’Albert with a libretto by Richard Batka, based on a drama by Heinrich Lilienfein. D’Albert composed the work between 1915 and 1917; it premiered on 10 March 1918 at the Stadttheater Leipzig.
Plot
In the winter of 1808/09, during the Napoleonic occupation of Spain, French General Guillaume and his troops are quartered at the castle of Olivera. After the French kill the bull chosen for the corrida, the Marqués de Barrios plans an uprising. When the conspiracy is uncovered, Guillaume blackmails the Marqués’s daughter Juana into marrying him to protect her family; she plots revenge until Guillaume stabs her and, in the end, sacrifices himself to enable Napoleon’s escape.
Cultural significance
The work, also adapted into a film in 1921, belongs to d’Albert’s middle creative period centred on Leipzig and combines historical colour with a late-Romantic idiom written for a large orchestra and numerous solo voices.