By the 1860s, the operettas of French composer Jacques Offenbach were becoming ppopular with the Viennese audience. Franz von Suppe, already established in the Austrian Imperial capital as an operetta composer and conductor, found the new competition stimulating enough to produce a new two-act operetta based upon the classic tale of the sculptor Pygmalion falling in love with his statue of Galathee. The first performance was given in Berlin on June 30, 1863 with the Vienna premiere at the Carltheater on September 9, 1865. Die schoene Galathee proved to be one of the composer’s most successful, with performances in London and New York. Though the operetta is largely forgotten now, Suppe’s brilliant overture has never left the concert repertoire. Like the others of this series, the study score offered here - for the first time in a convenient and affordable format - is a licensed reprint of the newly-engraved and reasreached large score first issued by E.F. Kalmus in 2006.

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