About the work
"Frühlingsstürme" is an operetta by Jaromír Weinberger to a libretto by Gustav Beer, which premiered on 20 January 1933 at Berlin's Admiralspalast with Richard Tauber as the Japanese Major Ito and Jarmila Novotná as the Russian general's widow Lydia Pawlowska.
Plot
Set during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 and its aftermath in Manchuria and San Remo, the plot combines a love story between the Russian general's widow Lydia Pawlowska and the Japanese Major Ito with espionage intrigue, alongside a second romance between the journalist Roderich Zirbitz and Tatjana, daughter of General Katschalow.
Cultural significance
"Frühlingsstürme" is considered the last operetta of the Weimar Republic: it premiered ten days before the Nazi seizure of power, and after disruptions by antisemitic agitators the work was withdrawn on 12 March 1933. It then went unperformed in Germany for 87 years, until Barrie Kosky revived it in 2020 at the Komische Oper Berlin in a version reconstructed from surviving material by Norbert Biermann.