Musical farce in four acts by Nino Rota · Libretto by Ernesta Rinaldi and Nino Rota after the comedy Un Chapeau de paille d’Italie by Eugène Marin Labiche and Marc Antoine Amédée Michel · Sung in Italian with German and English surtitles

“Straw is beautiful. It takes a lot to find such a beautiful hat!”

A straw hat as the corpus delicti: while the married Anaide is engaged in an extramarital tête-à-tête, she hangs her straw hat on a tree—only for it to be eaten by Fadinard’s horse. But without the hat, Anaide cannot return home to her husband. It now falls to Fadinard to procure a replacement. This proves to be a difficult undertaking—especially since the whole drama unfolds on his wedding day, with the entire wedding party breathing down his neck. What follows is a wild and breathless chase.

Nino Rota is best known as a film composer, yet his operas are equally guaranteed to entertain. With a keen sense of (theatrical) rhythm and numerous quotations from musical classics—including Gioachino Rossini, Giacomo Puccini and Johann Strauss II—he created a lively opera that delivers great enjoyment right up to its nerve-racking finale.