Based on the novella "The People of Seldwyla" by Gottfried Keller, this
opera was written in 1901 and first performed in German at Berlin's
Komische Oper on 21 February 1907. Its first English-language production
was given in London on 22 February 1910. Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
obtained his first successes in Germany. He numbers among the late-Romantic
composers in the line of Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. The dramatic
weightiness and heroic sweep of these composers is, however, missing in
Delius's music, which is more dream-like and limpid, as in the well-known
"Walk to Paradise Garden", an intermezzo from the opera "A Village Romeo
and Juliet". Delius's most important opera, it radiates a fairy-tale
atmosphere similar to that found in Pfitzner and Humperdinck.