Die Zirkusprinzessen

by Emerich Kálmán (1882 - 1953).
First performed on the 26th March 1926 at the Theatre an der Wien, Vienna.
Book and Lyrics by Julius Brammer and Alfred Gruenwald.

The action of the operetta takes place before 1914 and is set in St.Petersburg and Vienna.

A mysterious, masked horseman Mr.X is the uncontested star of St.Petersburg's Stanislawski Circus. One of his secret admirers is Princess Fedora Palinska, the young and much courted widow of Prince Palinsky. Years ago, her late husband had disinherited his only nephew, Fedya, after the young man had dared to fall in love - albeit from afar - with his pretty young bride, Fedora. Princess Fedora's current escort Prince Sergius has long been beseiging her heart, but with little success, Fedora, in fact, rebuffing him with claims that she would rather marry a circus horseman. Cut to the quick, Prince Sergius vows to avenge himself and incites the masked horseman, Mr.X (who is actually none other than the disinherited nephew Fedya Palinsky) to adopt, unmasked, the pseudonym of 'Prince Korossov' and woo Princess Fedora. This he does with some success and the two fall passionately in love. A few weeks later, Prince Sergius, hoping that this love affair will end in Princess Fedora's complete humiliation, sends her a forged letter from the Czar, advising Fedora that he, the Czar, intends to marry her off the following morning to a man she does not know. But having no intention of letting this happen to her, Princess Fedora decides there and then to marry 'Prince Korossov'. But after the wedding, to which all the circus artistes have been invited, Princess Fedora is deeply offended when her new husband is indentified as Mr.X and she, hailed as the 'Circus Princess'. And even after learning of the true aristocratic identity of her husband, Fedya, Princess Fedora refuses to calm down and departs angrily. However when the circus later travels to Vienna for a guest performance, Princess Fedora hears about it and hurries off to be reunited with Fedya. Her love has triumphed over her wounded pride, and the couple, reconciled, look forward to a blissful married life.