Der Bettelstudent

Der Bettelstudent (The Beggar Student) is an operetta in three acts by Carl Millöcker with a German libretto by Camillo Walzel (under the pseudonym of F. Zell) and Richard Genée, based on Les noces de Fernande by Victorien Sardou and The Lady of Lyons by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

Johann Strauss II rejected the libretto in favor of A Night in Venice,[1] but Millöcker's work turned out to be an enduringly popular operetta, with over 5,000 productions.

He releases a seemingly penniless student and his friend (Symon and Janicki) to pose as a millionnaire and his aide, to entice the bankrupt but venerable Nowalska family.

Symon is contemplating suicide, when his friend Janicki reveals that he is a Polish officer and is part of a group of patriots who are planning to capture the citadel and to reinstate King Stanislaus.

The Governor-General discovers that Janicki knows the whereabouts of the Polish grand duke and bribes him with 200,000 thalers to reveal his location to the Austrians.