Boccaccio, oder Der Prinz von Palermo (Boccaccio, or the Prince of Palermo) is an operetta in three acts by
Franz von Suppé to a German libretto by Camillo Walzel and
Richard Genée, based on the play by Jean-François Bayard, Adolphe de Leuven, Léon Lévy Brunswick and Arthur de Beauplan, based in turn on The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio.
The opera was first performed at the Carltheater, Vienna, on 1 February 1879.
An English translation was done by Oscar Weil and Gustav Hinrichs around 1883.
In early-Renaissance Florence, the erotic novellas of the poet Boccaccio cause a stir and the locals are divided into the female fans of his scandalous tales and their jealous husbands. A plot is hatched by the husbands to chase Boccaccio from the city and have him locked up. But Boccaccio has other plans, including one to win the hand of the Duke's daughter Fiammetta, which he finally succeeds in doing after finding favour with the Duke. Suppé's finest operetta.
