Jokes in the New Year's Eve

by Petar PLAMENOV

28 December (Wednesday), 2011
 National Music Theatre
Address:
Sofia, 3 Panaiot Volov Str.
Phone: 02 943 19 79
Start 19:00, 5/3BGN


Director: Svetozar Donev
Conductor: Igor Bogdanov
Scene and costume: Evgenia Raeva · Choreography: Svetlin Ivelinov
Master of tne Choir: Liudmil Gorchev

Cast: Dobrina Ikonomova, Marcho Apostolov, Alexander Vasilev, Zornitza Damianova, Olga Dinova, Stefan Petkov, Alexander Penchev, Vencislav Dinov, Rumen Grigorov, Ivan Panev, Svetoslav Klincharov

Strauss’ comic operetta Die Fledermaus is by all regards a classic of light opera and his undisputed masterpiece. And while early on there were many opera purists who looked down upon operettas when compared to more serious works, none other than Gustav Mahler conducted performances at the Hamburg Opera in 1894 and staunchly defended its place in the repertory. At the Vienna Opera, in 1899, when Mahler’s choice of tenors for the role of Eisenstein complained that the part was “beneath his dignity,” Mahler again strongly rebuffed this criticism and proclaimed the superiority of Strauss’ masterwork to all other contenders of the genre.

In this best-known of all operettas, the womanizing Gabriel von Eisenstein becomes the victim of an elaborate practical joke by his friend Dr. Falke.The musical comedy is the peak of Strauss’ creative work – an acknowledgement that is due to the richness of amusing melodies with touchy rhythm. The operetta was composed 130 years ago but it has a contemporary sounding – spicy humor and unexpected turnabouts in the action. Because of its unusual character and novelties the audience and the critics had at first accepted it very skeptically and barely after its sensational success in Berlin it turned out to be a triumph in Austria.

The admirers of Vienna classics will be pleasantly surprised by the new spectacle that was made especially for tours in Japan and Germany. In that most brilliant work by Johann Strauss II take part the stars of the National Musical Theatre, the orchestra, the chorus and the ballet of the theatre produced by professor Svetozar Donev.

Johann Strauss the Younger was the most famous and accomplished member of the musical dynasty that began with his father, Johann Strauss the Elder (1804-49), a noted violinist, conductor and composer. Together with his brothers Josef and Eduard, who both wrote waltzes and polkas, the younger Strauss effectively ruled the dance music world of Vienna, the city of his birth, for most of the nineteenth century.


He wrote his first waltz at the age of six; but it was not until his father, who had wanted him to go into banking, deserted the family in 1842 that he began his formal musical education. He soon formed his own small orchestra and their debut in 1844 was such a success that he became his father's leading rival overnight. When his father died five years later the two orchestras were merged under his direction.

In the 1850s Strauss introduced some of the compositional techniques of Wagner and Liszt into his waltzes, receiving a rebuke from the fiercely anti-Wagnerian critic Eduard Hanslick. The public was in favour, however, and in the 1860s he became increasingly busy both composing and conducting, particularly during the ball season of Vienna's high society. Most of his finest waltzes date from this decade - Morning Papers (I 864), the ever popular Blue Danube (1867), Talesfrom the Vienna Woods (1868), and Wine, Women and Song (1869) among them.

Strauss's waltzes all fit a basic pattern, consisting of a slow, scene-setting introduction, followed usually by five waltz sections. They finished with a coda (end section) that reintroduced the main waltz tunes in a continuous sequence, creating a sense of quickening musical pace. It was a format that any competent composer could use to good effect; but Strauss's best waltzes were more poised and better orchestrated, his rhythmic combinations more finely balanced, and his melodies simply more graceful than those of anyone else. They captured the mood of nineteenth-century Vienna - its sophistication and its hedonism.



The 'Waltz King' was naturally expected to tour - during the 30 years from 1856 Strauss made appearances all over Europe, from England to Russia, hailed as Austria's most successful ambassador. He was invited to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1872 for an 'International Peace jubilee' marking the end of the Franco-Prussian War. It was a huge gala affair, in which he was forced to endure numerous performances of The Blue Danube and Wine, Women and Song, but it brought him worldwide popularity. In 1876 he dedicated his Centennial Waltzes to the American people in honour of the one hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Comic opera and operetta had become popular in Vienna, particularly the works of the Parisian composer Jacques Offenbach. In the 1870s theatre directors and librettists turned to Strauss for a distinctly Viennese contribution to the genre. He had never had to fit his free flowing melodies to a text before, and he was no discerning judge of librettos suitable for the task.



Of his 18 published stage works only two operettas passed into the repertory, largely due to their excellent librettos. Die Fledermaus (The Bat) from 1874 does, however, sparkle with all the wit and elegance of his best waltzes, while Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron), dating from 1885, uses gypsy melodies and exotic harmonies to capture the Hungarian flavour of its subject.

In 1885 Strauss converted to the Protestant faith in order to divorce his second wife Angelika (his first, Hennriette, had died) and marry the young widow Adele Strauss (no relation). This cost him his Austrian citizenship. He assumed that of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha for the rest of his life, but Vienna was always his home. When he died there in 1899 a part of the Austrian Empire died with him.

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