Arizona Lady

Cowboys, horse racing and the really big emotions! Emmerich Kálmán’s last operetta, premiered posthumously, brings all this and more to the stage of Graz Opera. Kálmán’s western operetta can be experienced for the first time in Austria in an exciting and emotional production.

Sunshine Ranch, Wild West: For Lona Farrell, ranch owner and horse breeder with Hungarian roots, work comes first. She takes a rather critical view of potential love adventures, although the world of men would love to fall at her feet. When the mysterious cowboy Roy Dexter takes over the vacant position of the overbearing foreman Jim Slaughter and the racehorse Arizona Lady seems to break new records under his care, Lona and Roy find it difficult to hide their romantic feelings for each other. A happy ending is already within reach, if it weren’t for Jim Slaughter and his new dubious boss McDumb ...
After his exile in America, Emmerich Kálmán returned to Europe in 1949. He took his memories of the USA with him. In Arizona Lady, the dyed-in-the-wool western fan incorporated all the sounds that inspired him: Waltz, Foxtrot, Csárdás and, unique to this operetta, an American square dance. It was to be Kálmán’s last operetta, which was completed after his death at the instigation of his son Charles. Director Christian Thausing and choreographer Evamaria Mayer, who brought Anatevka to the stage here with great success in 2020, are staging the singing cowboys and cowgirls for Graz Opera. The conductor is Kai Tietje, who already conducted the operetta in concert form in 2014 as a rediscovery at the Komische Oper Berlin and is known to local audiences from Tom Sawyer (2023/24) and Roxy und ihr Wunderteam (2024/25).