Kaiserin Josephine (Empress Josephine): Mein Traum, mein Traum (My Dream, my Dream)

Kaiserin Josephine, written shortly before Kálmán was forced to leave Vienna, is an ambitious piece that was to have been first-performed, like Lehár’s Giuditta, at the prestigious Staatsoper. Politics intervened, however, and it was first seen in Zurich in neutral Switzerland, which didn’t give the work the start it deserved. Even so, several arias have remained in the repertoire, including Josephine’s Mein Traum, mein Traum from the first act. Before she becomes the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, she offers an uninhibited account of the erotic fulfilment she dreams she will one day enjoy. It takes the form of a sensuous slow waltz so much more luxuriantly orchestrated than anything in Kálmán’s early Viennese career.