We know Ignaz Jan Paderewski (1860-1941) as a legendary pianist, probably also as the first president of the newly founded state of Poland in 1918 - and we have certainly heard that he left behind a not insignificant compositional oeuvre: in particular, his Piano Concerto in A minor and the Symphony in B minor "Polonia" have deservedly made it to recording honours. A similar one-off to these works is the opera Manru, which was premiered at the Dresden Semperoper on 29 May 1901, and met with triumphant success. Some 120 years later, on 19 March 2022, the "Gypsy drama" was brought out again for the first time in the original German language at the Halle Opera House, and it turned out that not only the tragedy arising from ethnic conflicts, but above all Paderewski's music has lost none of its former appeal: the original layout of the three-act work, the successful examination of Richard Wagner's legacy, and the spirited diction influenced by native folk music result in a synthesis that is still able to immediately captivate today. It is not without reason that the Halle Opera production was awarded the FAUST Perspective Prize in the autumn of 2022.