About the work
Die Geisha is an English operetta in two acts by Sidney Jones, based on a book by Owen Hall, with lyrics by Harry Greenbank and additional songs by Lionel Monckton. It premiered on 25 April 1896 at Daly's Theatre in London; the German adaptation by Julius Freund and Curt Max Roehr opened in 1897 at Berlin's Lessing-Theater.
Plot
A British naval officer becomes entangled with the geisha O Mimosa San in a Japanese port town while his fiancée arrives unexpectedly. To win him back, she disguises herself as a geisha at the tea house — a mix-up that is resolved via a jealous governor and a mock auction.
Cultural significance
With around 760 performances in London, 'Die Geisha' was one of the most successful musical theatre works of its era and is regarded as one of the first internationally successful British stage musicals; in Germany alone it reached several thousand performances by the early 1900s, including long runs at Berlin's Schillertheater and Vienna's Carl-Theater. The show did much to make the word 'geisha' known outside Japan.