Recommended for Grades 6-12
In this resource, you will:
- Learn the opera’s background and synopsis
- Meet the opera’s composer
Die Fledermaus
by Johann Strauss
Die Fledermaus
by Johann Strauss
A quick overview of Johann Strauss’ 1874 comic operetta.
Premiered
1874
Music by
Johann Strauss II
Libretto by
Karl Haffner and
Richard Genée
Language
German
Background
Probably the most popular of all Viennese operettas, Die Fledermaus is a sparkling confection of mistaken identities, illicit liaisons, and champagne-fueled merriment.
Composer Johann Strauss II, hailed worldwide as the “waltz king,” invested his delightful score with an irresistible wealth of vocal melodies and dance music. Born into a musical family, Strauss enjoyed tremendous success as both a composer of dance music and as a conductor.
Noting the success of French composer Jacques Offenbach’s frothy opéra bouffes in Vienna, Strauss turned to the stage, creating a graceful, distinctly Viennese style of operetta. His charming stage works brought him much wealth and international fame and would even help mold the form and style of the American stage and screen musical.
Synopsis
Act I
The Eisensteins’ maid, Adele, receives a letter from her sister Ida, a ballerina, suggesting that she attend a party to be given that night by the rich young Russian Prince Orlofsky. Adele’s successful plea to her mistress for time off is interrupted by the serenade and entrance of Rosalinde Eisenstein’s former suitor, Alfred. Eisenstein plans to leave that night to serve a short jail term, and Rosalinde induces Alfred to go away before her husband returns, with the promise that she will receive him later. Eisenstein appears, berating his incompetent lawyer, Dr. Blind, and finally throws him out. A friend of the Eisensteins’, Dr. Falke, arrives and takes Eisenstein aside to invite him to Orlofsky’s party before going to prison. Husband and wife part, not unwillingly, and Rosalinde gives Adele the night off.
Alfred returns and makes himself so completely at home that when Frank, the governor of the prison, comes to escort Eisenstein to jail, he naturally takes the lover for the husband; Alfred gallantly goes in his place.
Act II
Chez Orlofsky, Falke explains to his host the farce he has arranged to amuse the jaded young nobleman and to wreak personal revenge. (Three years ago, after a costume ball, Eisenstein had deserted the drunken Falke, who was dressed as a bat, outside the city so that he had to walk home the next morning in costume.) Falke has invited the maid Adele (to be introduced as “Olga,” an actress), Frank (as “Chevalier Chagrin”), Eisenstein (as “Marquis Renard”), and Rosalinde (as a “masked Hungarian countess”). When all the guests have arrived, momentary embarrassments only briefly ruffle the masqueraders’ composure and the “Marquis” flirts with the “Countess.” But at the very moment when the spirit of Bruderschaft is at its climax, the “Marquis” must leave for prison, and he goes, escorted by “Chagrin.”
Act III
The drunken jailer Frosch finds himself with two Eisensteins to ward. Adele comes to ask “Chagrin” for help in getting on the stage. By the time Rosalinde arrives to arrange the release of Alfred, her husband has disguised himself as Dr. Blind in order to ascertain the identity of his alter ego and has learned more than he wished to hear. Rosalinde counters with proof of his own deceits; and in a spirit of mutual forgiveness, peace is made. Champagne was to blame for everything.
—Courtesy of San Francisco Opera
Listen to the Story
Poster by Jules Chéret (1836-1932) for Johann Strauss’ 1877 opérette La Tzigane (Die Fledermaus) at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris [].
Presented by Washington National Opera, host Saul Lilienstein takes you through the musical world of Strauss’s 1874 comic operetta, Die Fledermaus.
Watch an Excerpt
The Met’s 2014 English-language production of Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, directed by Jeremy Sams.
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