About the work
„Mister Wu“ is d’Albert's last opera: from sketches left at his death in March 1932, Leo Blech completed and orchestrated the three-act work, set to a libretto by Karl Michael von Levetzow after the play of the same name by Harry M. Vernon and Harold Owen. The posthumous premiere took place on 29 September 1932 at the Dresden Staatsoper, conducted by Leo Blech, with Maria Cebotari, Marta Fuchs, Kurt Böhme and Friedrich Plaschke.
Plot
While the mandarin Wu Lee Chang is away, his daughter Nang Ping prepares an afternoon reception for the Gregory family in the palace garden. Beforehand she meets Basil, by whom she is expecting a child — a bond that, in Wu Lee Chang's world, breaches the family's honour and drives the plot toward catastrophe.
Cultural significance
That a colleague finished the unfinished work after d’Albert's death makes „Mister Wu“ a special case in his operatic output; the premiere cast, with Maria Cebotari and Marta Fuchs, shows how much weight the Dresden house placed on the posthumous work, even though it failed to hold the repertoire.