About the work
The Last Savage is a three-act comic opera by Gian Carlo Menotti to his own libretto, translated into French for its premiere as Le dernier sauvage on October 21/22, 1963, at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. It was Menotti's first opera to open at a European house in a language other than English.
Plot
The American millionaire Scattergood travels to India with his daughter Kitty, an anthropology student searching for a 'last savage' for her thesis. The maharajah secretly has the poor stable boy Abdul play the part; back in Chicago, Kitty falls for Abdul and tries to civilize him. Abdul flees to a jungle cave, and Kitty eventually follows him there to live in the wild.
Cultural significance
Parisian critics were largely dismissive despite audience enthusiasm, and the 1964 Metropolitan Opera premiere in English fared no better; only later revivals, notably Santa Fe Opera's 2011 production, have reclaimed the piece as an overlooked comedy.