About the work
One-act intermezzo by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to a libretto by Enrico Golisciani. The opera premiered on 4 December 1909 at the Munich Hoftheater, in a German translation by Max Kalbeck as "Susannens Geheimnis". Scored for only two singing roles and one silent part, it is among the most sparsely cast of the composer’s stage works.
Plot
Count Gil comes home to find the sitting room smelling of tobacco smoke – to him, proof that his young wife Susanna is receiving a lover. Jealous, he shadows her and secretly searches the house. In the end the secret turns out to be a harmless vice: Susanna has been smoking cigarettes on the sly, considered improper for a lady of her time. After the initial shock, the couple reconciles and shares a cigarette together.
Cultural significance
With its return to the lightness of opera buffa and its lean forces, the opera became Wolf-Ferrari’s greatest international success and remains his most frequently performed stage work to this day.