Die Fledermaus: synopsis, roles, numbers and diction notes

A masked ball, a prison full of party guests and one light-hearted revenge: the operetta runs on mistaken identities^1,2,4. This guide gives the roles, the plot act by act and the numbers by act and character; more guides are in the operas section.

Composition and sources

The original literary source for Die Fledermaus was Das Gefängnis, a farce by Julius Roderich Benedix¹. Benedix’s farce premiered in Berlin in 1851¹. A three-act French vaudeville play by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, Le Réveillon, opened at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal on 10 September 1872¹. Karl Haffner translated it into German for Vienna as a non-musical play, at the instigation of Max Steiner¹. The libretto, credited to Haffner and Richard Genée, is based on that vaudeville².

The French New Year’s Eve réveillon was not considered to provide a suitable setting for the Viennese theatre, so a ball replaced it¹. The translation was then passed to the playwright and composer Richard Genée, who completed the libretto¹. He had provided some of the lyrics for Strauss’s Der Karneval in Rom the year before¹.

The operetta premiered on 5 April 1874 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna^1,3. Strauss conducted; Marie Geistinger sang Rosalinde, Caroline Charles-Hirsch sang Adele and Jani Szika sang Eisenstein¹. Two years later it had already been performed more than 200 times all over the world⁶. It has been part of the regular repertoire ever since¹. In 1894 it achieved court opera honors in Vienna, and since 1900 it has almost always been performed there on New Year’s Eve⁴.

Roles and voice types

Eisenstein was originally written for a tenor but is now frequently sung by a baritone¹. Orlofsky is a trouser role, usually performed by a mezzo-soprano, sometimes by a countertenor and occasionally, an octave lower, by a tenor¹. Recordings exist with the tenors Rudolf Christ, Gerhard Stolze and Wolfgang Windgassen as Orlofsky¹. Frosch is a comedy speaking role¹.

English versions vary the names: Ida, for example, is called Sally in the Schirmer translation¹. Adele receives a forged letter, allegedly from her sister, inviting her to Prince Orlofsky’s ball¹.

Synopsis

Act 1

The act is set in Eisenstein’s apartment¹. A lovely tenor voice is heard outside the dwelling of the wealthy Gabriel von Eisenstein⁷. It is Alfred, serenading Rosalinde; they became acquainted while visiting a spa⁷. Eisenstein has been sentenced to eight days in prison for insulting a civil servant, partly because of the incompetence of his attorney, Dr. Blind¹. Falke arrives to invite him to the ball, where Falke plans a light-hearted revenge for an earlier practical joke¹.

After Eisenstein leaves, Alfred, his former friend and Rosalinde’s former lover, serenades Rosalinde¹. In order not to compromise Rosalinde, Alfred agrees to pretend to be Eisenstein and to accompany the prison governor Frank¹.

Act 2

The act is set in a summer house in the Villa Orlofsky¹. Falke promises Orlofsky an entertainment called The Revenge of the Bat⁵. At the ball, Rosalinde pretends to be a masked Hungarian countess¹. Eisenstein goes by the name Marquis Renard, while Frank is the Chevalier Chagrin¹. Adele, who has borrowed one of Rosalinde’s dresses, pretends she is an actress, and she is introduced as Olga, a Russian countess^1,7.

Eisenstein and Frank, both posing as Frenchmen, repeat common French phrases to each other, to Orlofsky’s great amusement¹. Rosalinde succeeds in extracting a valuable watch from her husband’s pocket, to use later as evidence of his impropriety¹. She sings a sentimental dancing-song, the Czardas, to convince the party that she is Hungarian¹. Orlofsky toasts champagne in the finale, and Eisenstein and Frank dash off as the clock strikes six in the morning¹. The masquerade and trickery end with the entire group of partygoers in prison².

Act 3

Act 3 takes place in the prison offices of Warden Frank¹. The prison is given a dubious touch by the bailiff Frosch, who is never sober⁴. Frosch is a jailer who has been tippling in the absence of the warden⁷. Alfred, still in jail in Eisenstein’s place, irritates the other prisoners by singing operatic arias¹. Eisenstein takes the place of the notary Dr. Blind in disguise and thus discovers the events of the night⁴. Eisenstein, Rosalinde and Alfred sing a trio in which Eisenstein angrily claims the right of vengeance, until Rosalinde produces his watch¹.

Falke explains that the whole thing was payback for Eisenstein’s practical joke on him three years before¹. Eisenstein tells Rosalinde that his misbehavior was caused by the champagne, and she forgives him unconditionally¹. Orlofsky promises to finance Adele’s acting career, and the company joyfully reprises the Champagne song from act 2¹.

Numbers and arias

The party of act 2 allows productions to insert a variety of additional entertainment acts, such as music, comedy or dance¹. The numbers below are the ones the sources place by act and character; the English is our own gloss.

The Semperoper names the Watch duet, the Czardas and Adele’s Mein Herr Marquis as the classic numbers². The majority of the numbers have a dance character: waltz, polka, cancan, gallop and csárdás⁴. The score draws on almost the entire European dance repertoire, including Spanish, Russian and Polish dances⁴. It also carries Alpine folk influences: yodeling and vocal polyphony⁴.

Strauss writes with lightness and transparent orchestral sound, with a wealth of woodwind combinations, and his invention is primarily instrumental⁴. He adopts buffo elements from Italian opera in the figure of Dr. Blind, but there are no traces of bel canto⁴.

What the title means

Die Fledermaus means The Bat in English, and the operetta is sometimes called The Revenge of the Bat^1,3. After a costume party, Eisenstein abandoned Falke, very drunk and dressed in a bat costume, in the center of town, exposing him to ridicule the next day¹. That is why Falke’s nickname is Dr. Fledermaus⁵. Falke stages his revenge at the ball¹.

The joke dates from three years before the ball in the standard plot¹ and from two years before in Cincinnati Opera’s updated staging⁵. We follow the standard plot.

Performance history

The German premiere took place at Munich’s Gärtnerplatztheater in 1875¹. Die Fledermaus was performed in New York under Rudolf Bial at the Stadt Theatre on 21 November 1874¹. It was sung in English at London’s Alhambra Theatre on 18 December 1876, with its score modified by Hamilton Clarke¹. The first London performance in German did not take place until 1895¹. Twenty years after the Vienna production, Gustav Mahler raised the work’s artistic status by producing it at the Hamburg Opera House¹. The Paris version of 1877, La Tzigane, was not a success; it found success only in 1904 in a version based on Meilhac and Halévy’s play¹.

The Royal Opera House staged the work on 6 May 1930 with the Grand Opera Syndicate, and The Royal Opera’s company premiere was on 31 December 1977³. In Vienna, director Otto Schenk re-staged the Wiener Staatsoper production on 31 December 2011⁴. Günter Krämer’s production has been performed at the Semperoper Dresden since 2003².

Running time depends on the staging. The Wiener Staatsoper lists 50 minutes for act 1, 55 for act 2 and 50 for act 3, with two 25-minute intermissions⁴. The Finnish National Opera lists 3 h 10 min with one 30-minute interval⁶, and Cincinnati Opera lists about 2 hours, 20 minutes with one intermission⁵.

Strauss’s music has been adopted for other works. Nightbirds, with lyrics by Gladys Unger, opened at the Lyric Theatre, London, on 30 December 1911¹. A Wonderful Night opened at the Majestic Theatre on October 31, 1929, the first Broadway musical to open after the Wall Street crash of 1929¹. Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s adaptation Gay Rosalinda was produced in London in 1945¹. Ernst Lubitsch directed the silent film The Merry Jail in 1917, and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made Oh… Rosalinda!! in 1955¹.

Language and diction notes

The title is pronounced [diː ˈfleːdɐˌmaʊs]¹. The operetta is performed in German at the Semperoper Dresden, with German and English surtitles². The spoken dialogue is not translated word for word in those surtitles². Other houses localize the sung text: the Finnish National Opera performs it in Finnish, with surtitles in Finnish, Swedish and English⁶, and Cincinnati Opera sings it in English with projected titles⁵.

Frosch is a speaking role¹, and the German rules in German diction for singers apply to the dialogue as well as the numbers.

Further reading: Semperoper Dresden, Wiener Staatsoper and Utah State University Opera.

Where to go next

Two more German-language guides are Der Rosenkavalier and Hänsel und Gretel. The sounds behind the text start in IPA for singers.