Grzegorz ZIEZIULA From „Bettly” in French to „Die Schweizerhütte” in German: the foreign-language operas of Stanisław Moniuszko English translation by Paweł Gruchała „Muzyka” (60) 2015 no 4 pp. 69–96 Abstract Like many other musicians of his time, Moniuszko was a ‘multilingual’ composer, capable of dealing successfully with Italian, French or German prosody. Up to now, this fact has been ignored in the literature, as musicologists were unable to escape the pressure of Moniuszko’s universally accepted status as an icon of national music, which has so effectively eclipsed his true artistic ambitions. The starting point for my considerations is the comic opera Bettly (1852), in which Moniuszko relinquished his native tongue in favour of a French libretto by Scribe and Mélesville, borrowed from Adolphe Adam’s Le Chalet (1834). Having discussed how Bettly came to be written, as well as the history of its performances and reception, I focus on analysing the sources containing the opera’s libretto and music. As a result, I discover a much earlier, previously unknown operatic work by Moniuszko: Die Schweizerhütte, komische Oper in zwei Akten (c.1837–40), in which the composer drew on a German- language adaptation of the libretto of Le Chale, titled Mary, Max und Michel, produced by the composer and writer Carl Blum (1786–1844). In the context of Moniuszko’s ‘French’ Bettly and ‘German’ Die Schweizerhütte, I offer answers to the fundamental questions as to how the two works are related to each other and whether it is possible today to produce source-critical editions of them. I also present evidence that Moniuszko’s contemporaries were already aware of how heavily the composer’s operatic style depended on the style of the French opéra-comique. Another important aspect I discuss is Moniuszko’s recycling of music taken from Die Schweizerhütte and Bettly in later comic operas, such as Ideał, czyli Nowa Precjoza [Ideal, or The new Preciosa], Hrabina [The Countess] and Straszny dwór [The Haunted Manor].