Overture Die Fledermaus

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Overture Die Fledermaus

Die Fledermaus is all about having a good time. Other issues arise - like revenge, marital fidelity, social pretension, crime and punishment - but none of them is treated as seriously as the desirability of indulging oneself, preferably at someone else’s expense. Not the least entertaining part of the opera is the Overture which, since it takes no account of the order of events in the plot, requires no previous knowledge of how one of its principal characters acquired the embarrassing nickname of “Die Fledermaus” (The Bat) and how he gets his own back at a lavish and rather dissolute party thrown by the Russian Prince Orlofsky. The only Strauss operetta actually set it in Vienna, it brought the composer his first major success in the theatre on its first performance in 1874 and has remained one of the most successful of its kind.

The Overture begins with the most dramatic music in the score, which accompanies a show-down scene in a remarkably comfortable Viennese prison in the last of the three acts, cuts back to the bell striking six to mark 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.

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Overture: Die Fledermaus (1874)

By far the most successful of all Johann Strauss’s operettas, Die Fledermaus    is the only one set in the Vienna of his day. So it has    a special status in that its waltz and polka numbers numbers are, for once, presented in their true social context. Absurdly unlikely though the events of its tortuous plot undeniably are, it is clear from Die Fledermaus that the dances fashionable in Strauss’s Vienna were products of a flourishing good-time industry catering to the tastes of the upper and professional middle classes. Die Fledermaus is all about having a good time. Other issues arise – like revenge, marital fidelity, social pretension, crime and punishment – but none of them is treated as seriously as the desirability of indulging oneself, preferably at someone else’s expense.

Not the least entertaining part of the operetta is the Overture which, since it takes no account of the order of events in the plot, requires no previous knowledge of how one of its principal characters acquired the embarrassing nickname of “Die Fledermaus” (The Bat) and how he gets his own back at a lavish and frankly dissolute party thrown by the Russian Prince Orlofsky. It begins with the most dramatic music in the score, which accompanies a confrontation scene in a remarkably comfortable Viennese prison in the last act, cuts back to the bell striking six to mark 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.

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Overture Die Fledermaus

Die Fledermaus is by far the most successful of all Johann Strauss’s operettas. The only one set in the Vienna of his day, it has a very special status in that its waltz and polka numbers numbers are, for once, presented in their true social context. Absurdly unlikely though the events of its tortuous plot undeniably are, it is clear from Die Fledermaus that the dances fashionable in Strauss’s Vienna were products of a flourishing good-time industry catering to the tastes of the upper and professional middle classes. Die Fledermaus (first performed at the Theater an der Wien in 1874) is all about having a good time. Other issues arise - like revenge, marital fidelity, social pretension, crime and punishment - but none of them is treated as seriously as the desirability of indulging oneself, preferably at someone else’s expense.

Not the least entertaining part of the operetta is the Overture which, since it takes no account of the order of events in the plot, requires no previous knowledge of how one of its principal characters acquired the embarrassing nickname of “Die Fledermaus” (The Bat) and how he gets his own back at a lavish and frankly dissolute party thrown by the Russian Prince Orlofsky. It begins with the most dramatic music in the score, which accompanies a show-down scene in a remarkably comfortable Viennese prison in the last of the three acts, cuts back to the bell striking six to mark 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.