Die Fledermaus

Director Otto Schenk, who re-staged the production on December 31, 2011, sees two motors in Die Fledermaus: sentimentality, the surrender to an almost hypochondriacally exaggerated mood and the embarrassment caused by an almost satanic addiction to entertainment on the part of all those involved.

 

There is no composer after Mozart, apart from Mendelssohn, who combines lightness and transparent orchestral sound with such a differentiated wealth of combinations, especially in the woodwinds, as Strauss does in Die Fledermaus. His invention is primarily instrumental. Although he adopts buffo elements from Italian opera (in Dr. Blind), we find no traces of bel canto. Instead, the influences of Alpine folk music are obvious: yodeling and the harmony of vocal polyphony. The importance of dance music must also be mentioned. The majority of the numbers have a dance character: Waltz, polka, cancan, gallop, csárdás. We find almost the entire European dance repertoire here, including Spanish, Russian and Polish dances. Strauss thus proves himself to be a cosmopolitan European. Apart from Mozart and perhaps Liszt, there was no other composer who was so receptive to the music of the various European cultures; and that is another reason why he is so relevant today. (Iván Eröd)

 

Rarely has a work hit Vienna with such immediacy as Johann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus". From its premiere in 1874, the piece was performed at the highest level of density, and in 1894 it achieved court opera honors, remaining in the repertoire almost continuously ever since, and since 1900 almost always on New Year's Eve. The most famous of all operettas approaches varieties of erotic and social pretense with a happy and light hand and makes bourgeois façades dance, including political and social commentary.