s public shows itself as clearly
here as it did in "Barfuessele". The libretto is a lively picture of
the time of the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus.

Gruenfeld's music is not deep, but delightfully fresh and naive. He is
master in the instrumentation of miniature art. His vivid rythms
display a grace, {501} an "entrain" and a piquancy, which remind one of
Delibes and Massenet, without being imitations of these great masters.

The dances are perfectly original, full of life and fire, and the
ballet in the second act is in itself a masterpiece, that will hold its
own.

Besides this there are a roguish song by a goose-girl, a very pretty
valse rondo, and last but not least many fine Hungarian songs.

The scene is laid in Transylvania in the year 1459.

The first act takes place in the Transylvanian village of Fogaras.

A long war has deprived the village of all its men, and the women of
Fogaras are wildly lamenting their absence.

They have charged the governor ("Gespann") Paul Rosto to petition the
King, to restore their husbands, and when the young schoolmaster,
Augustin Paradiser, the only man in the village besides Rosto appears
on the scene, they bitterly complain to him of the governor's
dilatoriousness.

Augustin tries to appease them, by assuring them, that the petition was
duly sent, and soon Rosto himself comes to his assistance by presenting
them with the King's answer to their appeal.

His Majesty graciously agrees to the right of the women of Fogaras to
claim their respective husbands, fathers and sons, the King having only
borrowed them for a time.

But as unfortunately most of them were slain in battle or taken
captive, he is unable to return {502} them all, and therefore he
declares himself ready to supply other men in their stead.

To this end it seems necessary to him, to see some of the Fogaras
beauties, and therefore he decrees, that the town is to send him three
specimen of the handsomest amongst them, a black haired, a brown haired
and a fair haired beauty.

Should the women not be willing to comply with the King's command, they
should be severely punished for having troubled his Majesty about
nothing.

The women of Fogaras being all the reverse of pretty the governor finds
himself in an awkward dilemma.

Fortunately for him the Countess Magdalen Honey has just returned home
with her maid Marjunka.

The latter is at once surrounded by her old companions, and begins to
tell th