About the work
Gräfin Dubarry is an operetta in three acts by Carl Millöcker to a libretto by F. Zell (Camillo Walzel) and Richard Genée, telling of the rise of Louis XV's mistress Jeanne Bécu to Countess Dubarry. It premiered on 31 October 1879 at the Theater an der Wien.
Plot
The Parisian milliner Jeanne Bécu falls in love with the painter René Lavallery but becomes the mistress of King Louis XV, rising at the court of Versailles to become Countess Dubarry. The operetta traces her path from humble beginnings into the courtly world of the Ancien Régime.
Cultural significance
In 1931 Theo Mackeben produced a fundamentally reworked version titled "Die Dubarry", which, according to musicologist Andrew Lamb, departed markedly from Millöcker's original through "alien" structures and new orchestration; it also underlies the 1935 and 1951 film adaptations.