Faniska is an opéra comique in three acts by
Luigi Cherubini. The German libretto, by Joseph Sonnleithner, is based on the melodrama Les mines de Pologne (1803) by René-Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt.
In June 1805, Cherubini took up an invitation to travel to Vienna, where his works were highly appreciated. Here he put on a series of concerts and attended a performance of
Beethoven's
Fidelio. He met
Haydn, a composer he particularly admired, and gave him a medal from the Conservatoire de Paris. Haydn presented Cherubini with the manuscript of his "
Drumroll Symphony". Cherubini also accepted a commission to write an opera for the Viennese stage and Faniska was the result. The plot has much in common with Cherubini's earlier rescue opera Lodoïska (1791), including its Polish setting.
The opera was first performed at the Theater am Kärntnertor, Vienna, on 25 February 1806. It was enthusiastically received by Beethoven and Haydn but failed to win a lasting place in the repertoire.
