This week on The Lyric Stage we have highlights from Nico Dostal's 1933 comic operetta Clivia, with a libretto by Charles Amberg. Hollywood star Clivia Gray is to shoot a new film in Boliguay, a fictitious South American country, financed by the US industrialist Potterton. But they don't have a work permit. However, if Clivia marries the Boliguayan gaucho Juan Damigo, she will be a citizen and the film crew can go to work. The sham marriage soon turns into a love affair.
Meanwhile, the industrialist Potterton prepares a coup to overthrow the new Boliguayan government and save his investments in the country. The coup fails and the love affair is at stake - Juan turns out to be the revolutionary leader and people’s president of Boliguay who is suspicious of his wife's motives. But once Clivia proves that she knew nothing about Potterton's coup, all ends happily.
Nico Dostal (1895-1981) was an Austrian composer who worked as a theatre composer, arranger and orchestrator in both Austria and Germany. Clivia was his first operetta success.
