About the work
Die gelbe Jacke (The Yellow Jacket) is an operetta in three acts by Franz Lehár with a libretto by Victor Léon. It premiered on 9 February 1923 at the Theater an der Wien.
Plot
The Viennese Lea Limburger and the Chinese prince Sou-Chong fall in love between Vienna and Peking. Unlike in the later version, the prince here turns his back on his courtly duties in China, so the story ends happily.
Cultural significance
In 1929 Lehár reworked the piece with librettists Ludwig Herzer and Fritz Löhner-Beda into the internationally successful operetta Das Land des Lächelns, which kept several melodies, renamed characters and changed the ending from happy to tragic. Die gelbe Jacke itself, despite a warm reception, quickly disappeared from the repertoire.