Die Fledermaus Presented by the Georgia State Opera Theater Company

music by

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

liberetto by

Karl Haffner & Richard Genée

translation by

Ruth & Thomas Martin

dialogue translation by

Andreas Peschke

Artistic & Stage Director

Kathryn Hartgrove

Music Director & Conductor

Dr. Clinton Smith

synopsis

Act I

It is a far-off land in the late 1800’s. Outside in the street, Alfred serenades his former lover, Rosalinda, who is now married to Gabriel von Eisenstein. Adele, their chambermaid, has just received a letter from “her sister” inviting her to Prince Orlofsky’s ball. She concocts a scheme to get the night off and tells her mistress she must visit a sick aunt, but Rosalinda refuses to let her go. As Adele runs to her room sobbing, Alfred appears and declares his love to Rosalinda. She resists until he begins to sing. She hears someone coming, and sends Alfred away, but not before he has convinced her to let him return later. Eisenstein and his lawyer, Blind, arrive from a session in court: Eisenstein’s sentence has gone from five to eight days in jail for striking a police officer and must begin his term that very night. He throws Dr. Blind out of the house. His friend Falke pays the family a visit and urges Eisenstein to delay going to jail until morning so he can join him at Prince Orlofsky’s ball. Falke tells Eisenstein to bring along his infamous pocket watch to charm the ladies. While Eisenstein runs offstage to change into his “prison attire”. When he returns, Adele joins the couple in a bittersweet farewell as her husband heads off to “prison.” Rosalinda must now deal with Alfred, so she tells Adele to go see her “aunt”. Alfred glides in, puts on Eisenstein’s robe and nightcap and begins to woo Rosalinda. Their rendezvous is interrupted by the prison warden Frank, who has come to arrest Eisenstein. Rosalinde persuades Alfred to preserve her good name by posing as her husband, and Frank carts Alfred off to jail.

ACT II

Frosch the jailer, drunk as usual, Frank, is somewhat irritated by the nonstop singing of Alfred in cell number 12. Frank finally appears, tipsy and enraptured by memories of his magical evening posing as a Frenchman of royal blood. Ida and Adele arrive in the hopes that Frank would consider paying for her schooling as an actress. Frank hears a doorbell and sees that it is the “Marquis” aka Eisenstein. He sends the ladies off with Frosch and then admits Eisenstein, who says he has come to serve his sentence. Eisenstein is surprised to learn his cell is already occupied by a man who claims to be him and who was found in his apartment with Rosalinde. Blind arrives, claiming he was summoned by the man in cell 12 to handle a case of false arrest. Determined to get to the bottom of the matter, Eisenstein takes Blind’s cloak, glasses, and wig to disguise himself as the lawyer. At that moment, Rosalinde rushes in. She tries to secure Alfred’s release and asks “Blind” to press divorce charges against her husband but is surprised when the “lawyer” takes Eisenstein’s side. Dropping his disguise, Eisenstein accuses his wife of promiscuity, at which point Rosalinde pulls out his watch. Since they really do love each other, they decide to start a new chapter. Falke arrives to gloat over the success of his plan—only to find the couple falling into each other’s arms. Orlofsky arrives with his mother and guests just in time to see and hear the final result of the plot—and breaks into hysterical laughter. All sing to the joys of champagne.

ACT III

Prince Orlofsky enters with his mother Queen Consort, Theresia Xenia Alexandrovia. The guests gossip about their host, who does not hesitate to spend money on frivolous things. Orlofsky doubts that Falke’s promised evening of entertainment will amuse him in any way. Orlofsky invites his guests and the audience to behave however they want and do anything they like. Adele arrives—to the surprise of her sister Ida. Adele finds out that Ida did NOT write the letter inviting her to the ball. Ida is concerned though, that Adele isn’t classy enough to attend the ball, so they decide to present her as a Russian actress named Olga. Eisenstein enters, posing as a Frenchman, per Falke’s instructions. He is shocked when he sees Adele and mentions her uncanny resemblance to his wife’s chambermaid. Adele quickly responds by embarrassing Eisenstein for his obvious insult. Falke quickly sends off a note to Rosalinda encouraging her to come at once but in disguise. Frank enters, posing as a Frenchman too, and he and Eisenstein quickly become fast friends. Frank is taken with the sisters, Ida and “Olga” and does everything he can to impress them to impress them. Rosalinde arrives, disguised as a Hungarian countess. Falke points out Eisenstein’s flirtations, with her chambermaid. The crowd enters to see the mysterious lady and she sings of her homeland. Eisenstein is enamored and starts flirting with her. She manages to steal his infamous pocket watch. Falke regales the guests with the story of how he earned the nickname of Dr. Fledermaus: one drunken evening, when he was dressed as a bat for a costume ball, his best friend Eisenstein played a practical joke on him that embarrassed him for years. The crowd toasts drink, love, and brotherhood until the stroke of midnight. The guests dance through the night. Eisenstein attempts to regain control of his watch from Rosalinde to no avail. As the clock strikes six, he rushes off to jail.

Program Notes

Johann Strauss II, the celebrated “Waltz King,” first became acquainted with all manner of Viennese ballroom dances through the compositions of his father, Johann Strauss I (1804-1849), himself a prolific composer of dance music. Johann II and his younger brothers were exposed to a wide variety of music within their family residence, where their father’s orchestra rehearsed. Despite the fact that his father had intended a more comfortable life for him as a banker, Johann II decided to end his formal education in 1843 to pursue a musical career. This move became definitive when his parents divorced and the elder Strauss left the family to live with his mistress, leaving him to provide for the family.

In August 1844, Strauss received a public entertainment license and employed an orchestra of 24 musicians. He made his public debut as a composer and conductor at Dommayer’s Casino and was offered the honorary position of Bandmaster of the 2nd Vienna Citizens’ Regiment the following year. When his father died in 1849, Strauss was able to merge their two orchestras and take over many of his contracts, cementing his eminence in Vienna as a conductor and composer. Together with his brother, Josef, Johann held sway over Vienna’s dance music scene from the late 1850s–1870s. Demand for their services reached its height during the annual Carnival season, when they were expected to provide music for the city’s numerous balls. During this period, Strauss made great strides in the composition of dance music, particularly the Viennese waltz, expanding upon the form that his father had already solidified. It was also during this era that Strauss composed his most famous waltz, On the Beautiful Blue Danube (1866). Although Strauss began to experiment with composing operettas around 1850, his first stage work, Indigo und die vierzig Räuber, was not produced until 1871. In the 1850’s-1860’s Viennese theater managers became frustrated by Jacques Offenbach’s dominance of the stage, as well as the exorbitant fees associated with purchasing the rights to his music. They turned to Strauss, who would go on to compose around twenty operettas, of which three were internationally successful during his lifetime: Die Fledermaus (1874), Eine Nacht in Venedig (1883) and Der Zigeunerbaron (1885).

Die Fledermaus is based on a French Vaudeville play, Le Reveillon (1880), by Henri Meilhac (1831-1897) and Ludovic Halévy (1834-1908); it was translated as a stage play by Carl Haffner (1804-1876). The setting of a French réveillon (French supper party) created staging challenges, so Richard Genee (1823-1895) shifted it to a Viennese ball in his libretto for Strauss. Unsurprisingly, the score is dominated by dance forms. The Overture itself is a patchwork of dances that weave in and out of one another seamlessly. The entire operetta is a seduction of the senses; Strauss lures us into a world of Viennese opulence where champagne flows freely and the dancing never ends. It is fitting, then, that throughout the opera the waltz often represents seduction or deceit. At the end of Act 1, in “Drink my darling, drink with me,” Alfred attempts to seduce Rosalinde with a waltz. In Act 2, when Eisenstein recognizes his maid, Adele, at Orlofsky’s ball, she maintains her deception with the famous "laughing aria," “My dear Marquis,” which is also a waltz. Although the waltz is the dominant type of dance in Die Fledermaus, Strauss shows himself to be a masterful composer of further dances. In Act 2, Rosalinde, disguised as a Hungarian countess, sings the aria, “Sounds of my homeland,” in the form of a csárdás, a folk dance traditional to Hungary.

True to its form, her song begins slowly and wistfully but spins into a fiery conclusion. The operetta, which Strauss composed in just 43 days, premiered in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien on April 5, 1864. Its infectious score and copious dance material was extremely well received. Although there were only 16 Viennese performances during its f irst season, it was an immediate international success, with performances in Berlin and Hamburg that July. By November, it was also running in Budapest and New York, bringing its total performances in 1874 to 68. It hasn’t left the stage since. It was beloved in Strauss’s time as a diversion from recent hardships such as the Panic of 1873, and it is still very popular today, both as a diversion from our own harsh realities and as a glittering example from a bygone era of champagne and ballrooms.

- Program notes by Erica Williams