The Violet of Montmartre

Operetta in three acts by Imre Kalman

Libretto by Julius Brammer and Alfred Grunwald
Directed by National artist of Hungarian Republic Miklos Szinetar
Hungarian edition by — Andor Szenes, Istvan Szenes, Miklos Szinetar
Russian text — Sergey Volskiy
Lyrics — Maria Efremova
Musical leader and conductor — honoured artist of Russia Andrey Alekseev
Set and costume design by — Irina Dolgova
Light designer — Vladimir Lukasevich
Ballet master — Jeno Loscei (Hungary)
Chorus master — Alexey Nefedov

The three friends live in the mansard in Montmartre: Raoul, a painter, Henry, a poet, Florimond, a musician and the girl of Raul - model Ninon, who dreams of becoming an actress. Young people are poor, they could not get success - nobody want to buy paintings of Raoul, to publish poetry of Henri, and all music theaters reject music of Florimond. But friends do not lose heart, trying to drown hunger out by the songs and jokes.

Recently, there is a young street singer Violetta, nicknamed "The Violet of Montmartre" in their company. She is sincerely string along with new friends, and helps them to succeed...

They said, that "The Violet of Montmartre" was the most mysterious and most delightful work of Kalman. At the time of writing this operetta the fifty years-old composer was in love with his young wife, and all his music was suffused with a genuine sincerity and anticipation of happiness.

The premiere of the operetta took place on 21th of March, 1930 at Vienna Theater of Johann Strauss. Our theater have already turned to the production of "The Violet of Montmartre" five times: in 1933, 1944, 1953, 1958 and 1976. At this time, the performance is staged by Hungarian stage director Miklos Sinetar.