Die Fledermaus: Overture

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Die Fledermaus: Overture

The central figure, but by no means the ultimate winner, in Die Fledermaus is Gabriel von Eisenstein. In the first act he is looking forward to a lavish ball to be thrown by the Russian Prince Orlofsky and, in the absence of his wife Rosalinde, hoping to make a conquest or two. What he doesn’t know is that, in the absence of her husband, Rosalinde is about to entertain her lover and singing teacher Alfred. Although her infidelity is discovered in the third and last act, she has a weapon to counter Eisentstein’s indignation. In the second act, set at Orlofsky’s palace, she had turned up at the ball, masked and disguised as a Hungarian countess, and Eisenstein had fallen for her. In his efforts to seduce her he had let her take his watch, which of course she kept as evidence against him.

As the eventful overture suggests, the story is far more complicated than that. It begins with the most dramatic music in the score, which accompanies a final show-down scene in a remarkably comfortable Viennese prison, cuts back to a bell striking six and marking the end of the central ball scene, and cuts back again to the vigorous waltz which represents the climax of the Orlofsky festivities. A sentimental episode from the first act is followed by an increasingly impatient effort to get back to where the action is and the earlier tunes are duly recalled in an irresistibly reckless recapitulation.