William Shakespeare’s Spanish contemporary Lope de Vega (1562–1635), hailed by Miguel (Don Quixote) Cervantes as el Fénix de los ingenios or “the phoenix of wits,” is said to have written somewhere between 1,500 and 2,100 plays. By that standard, the 60-odd light operas or zarzuelas by Pablo Luna (1879–1942) seem a modest achievement, even factoring in the dozen or so screenplays he cranked out under another name. Benamor, regarded in Spain as one of Luna’s top three creations, revolves around a royal brother and sister who have been raised as sister and brother to escape execution under some cockamamie law governing birth order and succession. Now they’re of marriageable age, and Mom’s in a pickle. Having fallen under Luna’s lunatic spell on a visit to Madrid, the German star director Christof Loy now transplants Benamor to Vienna, no stranger to masquerades, intrigue, and amorous transformations. —Matthew Gurewitsch