At the Little White Horse

In the pleasant village of St. Wolfango, in the Salzkammergut, the beautiful hostess who owns the “Al Cavallino Bianco” hotel welcomes her guests, as she does every summer. Misunderstandings, work and love troubles will characterise the hotel's summer season until the arrival of the Archduke during the hunting season brings calm and serenity back.

On the evening of 3 November 1931, at the Teatro Lirico in Milan, the curtain rose on what was called the “show of the year’. The sumptuous staging proposed by the Schwartz brothers, the music full of grace, brio and pleasantness, and the undeniable brightness of the mountain setting made the show a success, and the audience, shouting “Bravi! Bravi!”, seemed never to want to leave the auditorium and return home into the foggy Milanese night.
But we are now in the 1930s and Al Cavallino bianco represents the watershed between true operetta and musical comedy, and can be considered one of the last fireworks of the small opera, one of the most enthusiastic of the century. 
Two important RAI editions are worth remembering: the first in 1954 with Nuto Navarrini, Edda Vincenzi, Anna Campori and Elvio Calderoni, directed by Mario Landi; and the one in 1974 with the likes of Gianrico Tedeschi, Paolo Poli, Angela Luce, Mita Medici, Maurizio Micheli, Gianni Nazzaro and Tony Renis, directed by Vito Molinari and choreographed by Gino Landi.
This edition, directed and choreographed by Maestro Serge Manguette, takes into account both the characteristics of operetta and the television versions, winking at musical comedy and musicals, resulting in a choral show full of colour, vivacity and lightness, and concluding with the long-awaited happy ending.