CHAT ON DIE FLEDERMAUS

Several years ago, I was chatting with a close friend about my future literary projects. I informed her that I would like one day to write a biographical novel on the most famous and beguiling courtesan in 17th century France, Ninon de Lenclos. This remark touched off a wild association of ideas in my friend’s mind. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “how I would love to be like her! How I’d love to embark on one tempestuous, torrid adventure after another!” Her outburst took me by surprise: “I thought your husband was perfectly capable of providing you with all the excitement you needed.” “Oh, I love my husband dearly,” she shot back almost defensively, then, heaving a sigh, she added, rather discouraged, “But you know, after 40 years…”

The two main protagonists of Die Fledermaus, Rosalinde, and Gabriel von Eisenstein, find themselves in a similar situation, with the major difference that they have not been married even half as long as my friend. The libretto doesn’t tell us exactly how long the two have been together, but one can surmise that they couldn’t have been in a conjugal relationship for more than a few years. Yet even after such a short time together, they are longing for the kind of excitement they apparently can no longer find in each other’s presence. They are still very cordial towards one another, and they still show affection to one another; nevertheless, something essential is missing. Even worse, they are getting bored.

How do they cope? They react in the typically Viennese and French traditions. They decide to have affairs. Here again, they are very different than my friend. Being forthright, she would not have concealed anything from her spouse. Unlike her, Rosalinde and Eisenstein want to have it both ways. They want the thrill of an extra-marital fling while holding on to the social respectability that comes from being a faithfully married couple. And when they get caught, they simply blame their transgressions on champagne.

As could be expected, this most famous of Strauss’ operettas is based on a libretto inspired by a naughty French play, Le Réveillon, written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, the very same team that provided Jacques Offenbach with some of his most sparkling scenarios. The experienced librettist, Richard Genée, provided a very skillful adaptation of the French comedy. The imagination of Johann Strauss was obviously fired up by the story because he created for Die Fledermaus some of his most delectable music. His melodies conjure up an atmosphere of flippancy that defines the behaviour of not only Rosalinde and Eisenstein but of all the other principal characters as well. They all function in what I would call a state of moral weightlessness. I would like to explore this dimension of DieFledermaus with you. I believe it is the key to understanding why they act the way they do.

By the expression “moral weightlessness” I do not mean immorality. None of the characters in this operetta are malevolent. They do not commit any really dastardly acts against one another. The prank that Eisenstein plays on his friend, Dr. Falke, several years before the action begins, is a prime example of their state of mind. Late one night, they were returning by coach from a costume ball together. Falke, dressed up as a bat, was stone drunk. The mischievous Eisenstein thought it would be fun to dump his friend in the public park and see what would happen afterward. When Falke woke up, he was the laughingstock of all the passers-by. You might ask, “Why do they take such pleasure in doing all these nutty things?” The answer is simple: to alleviate their boredom. Prince Orlovsky is the only character who explicitly declares that the purpose of life is to avoid boredom like the plague. But all the others, consciously or unconsciously, share his view. They act as though boredom were the worst curse imaginable. When you have nothing to occupy your mind agreeably, you are invariably led to ask questions about your purpose on this earth, and this can be a very frightening proposition.

No wonder the Viennese audiences in 1874 were enthralled by Die Fledermaus. The year before the stock market had crashed. Many prominent people lost their fortunes. They were happy, then, to see stage characters with whom they could identify, trying to create an atmosphere of euphoria. We, too, in the 21st century, are glad to see the very same ones striving to create pleasure in their lives. Watching all the fun they are having enables us to take our minds off our own stress-ridden existences. The universality of this quest for pleasure to alleviate boredom and despair explains why stage directors can play around to a certain extent with the dramatic structure of the work.

In the first production of Fledermaus, which I saw back in the early 50s, and a Met Opera one at that, Eisenstein goes to jail for kicking a tax collector in the stomach. (I dare say that in our evil heart of hearts, more than a few of us here would dearly love to do the same thing). In another, the judge slaps a prison sentence on him for punching a music critic in the face after the latter writes an excoriating review of his wife, Rosalinde’s performance as an opera star. The Canadian Opera Company’s new staging has updated the action to the early years of the previous century in order to underscore the fact that a frivolous society is whirling giddily and recklessly into the abyss.

Obviously, Rosalinde and Eisenstein epitomize this society. In their case, it would be inaccurate to state that familiarity breeds contempt, but it certainly engenders the need for exciting new perspectives of romance. To dissimulate their extra-curricular activities, they resort to hypocrisy. Are they doing this to avoid hurting one another, to avoid messy complications, or both? You decide for yourselves. In any event, in an irresistible trio in the first act that swings from phoney pathos to unbridled jubilation, they, and their impudent maid, Adele, express their contradictory emotions. They first feign sorrow and sympathy at the thought that Eisenstein will have to spend time in jail. The couple, both splendid actors, assure each other that they will count the minutes until they can fall into each other’s arms again. Adele waxes lyrical, too. But immediately afterward, they sing lustily about all the fun they are going to have once they are rid of each other’s presence.

Although he must report to jail the very next morning, Eisenstein is going to attend Prince Orlovsky’s lavish masquerade ball tonight. He will flirt with every lovely lady there, and that will just be the beginning. His wife will be free to resume a relationship with an ardent old flame, a singer by the name of Alfred, whose high As are still able to provoke a physiological reaction within her. As for Adele, she, too, will run off to the ball in one of her mistress’ sumptuous gowns, pretending that she is an aspiring actress.

Of the two partners in this rather shaky marital relationship, Rosalinde is the one who manages to carry off her affair with impressive aplomb. She salvages her good name by working her charms on her lover, Alfred. She gets him to agree to impersonate her husband, Eisenstein, when the prison governor, Frank, comes to escort the latter to his prison cell. Frank is convinced that the man he is taking away is indeed the spouse rather than the paramour. In the second act, she assumes the role of the masked Hungarian countess with such conviction and brio that Eisenstein, already besotted by too much champagne, never manages to penetrate her disguise.

In the third act, when Eisenstein, in a paroxysm of outraged masculine vanity and suffering from selective amnesia, accuses her of being a brazen adulteress, she simply produces the golden chime watch with which he attempted unsuccessfully to seduce her during Prince Orlovsky’s ball. (Incidentally, the very first bars of the overture evoke vividly Eisenstein’s self-righteous, hypocritical fury). Moreover, the argument Rosalinde uses to legitimize her behaviour illustrates her version of the moral weightlessness I referred to earlier. Our marriage is a kind of permanent partnership, she implies. I’ll always be here. So why can’t I have a little erotic excitement on the side from time to time? It won’t affect our relationship in the long run. She pleads her case in a tone of disarming flippancy:

The episode was harmless, a transient little kiss.

A husband would be charmless, if he took it amiss.

A wifetime is a lifetime, a little thing like this!

Their chambermaid, Adele, also endeavours to escape, if only temporarily, the boredom resulting from her lowly social station. One perceives in her the conviction that life has not dealt fairly with her. She believes she possesses a potential that will never be fulfilled if she continues in her function as a subaltern. When she receives an invitation to Orlovsky’s ball, she seizes this unexpected opportunity by the throat and nearly throttles it. With a mixture of spunkiness, effrontery, and wit, she succeeds in convincing her master, Gabriel von Eisenstein whom she meets there disguised as a fake nobleman, that far from being a lowly maid, she is a star in the making. Heraria, “Mein herr Marquis,” with its glittering color aturaroulades, evokes this effortless self-assurance.

In the third act, she reveals her talents as an actress when she pays a visit the next morning to the prison governor, Frank. She had met him at the ball as well, where he passed himself off as a French impresario by the name of the Chevalier Chagrin. Since she still thinks he can launch her career, she regales him with several very funny impersonations.

Now these singular encounters at the ball would never have taken place without a prime mover. He is Dr. Falke, the notary. With devilish skill, he sets this comedy of mistaken identities in motion for two reasons. He wants to pull Prince Orlovsky out of his pathological boredom, and he wants some fun and revenge himself. I pointed out earlier the prank his friend, Eisenstein, had played on him the night he was drunk and wearing a bat costume. Two years after this humiliating experience, Prince Orlovsky’s masquerade ball provides him with the ideal opportunity to settle old scores. Without ever mentioning the incident again, he sets the stage for Eisenstein’s mortification. As the French saying goes, vengeance is a dish that is best-eaten cold. He invites Eisenstein to appear at the party as a suave, womanizing Marquis, and Rosalinde as a fiery Hungarian Countess. He knows that under the influence of champagne, Eisenstein will fall madly in love with his own wife and make a complete fool of himself. To ensure that the comedy becomes even more hilarious, he invites Adele and Frank as well. Thus Falke ties the various strings of the plot together in such a way that the knot they form can never be untied. The only way to resolve the inextricable plot he has created is to blame everything on champagne and rise above it. This is exactly what all the characters agree to do at the end of the operetta.

Of all the protagonists in Die Fledermaus, the extravagant party-thrower, Prince Orlovsky, is undoubtedly the one who is floating continuously in a state of levitation. It is very appropriate, I think, that this male role is sung by a mezzo-soprano because the Prince is always pushing boundaries. His identity is not rooted in either one or the other sex. Addicted as he is to pleasures of all kinds in order to alleviate the boredom of being alive, it would not be surprising if he swung both ways or, to use the French expression, ran on both wind and steam. Orlovsky is hedonism personified, his motto being “Chacun à son gout”, or “To each his own.” What he accepts in himself, he accepts in everyone else. As the munificent host, he wants to be the facilitator of his guests’ pleasures.

Responsibility and self-sacrifice are meaningless to him. Here again, as in the case of the other characters, irresponsibility does not lead to malevolence. But moral elevation is not his forte. The only thing that counts in life is having fun. Once a relationship stops being fun, it is time to discard it in favour of something else. The word “commitment” simply doesn’t exist in his vocabulary. Orlovsky expresses this hedonistic principle in his second-act aria. He imagines himself fulfilling the request of one of his guests in the following lines:

And if he wants a wife round the house, a wife who’s not his own,

I’ll pick him an adorable spouse and leave them both alone.

It’s nice to have a wife round the house as long as she’s not your own.

Thus the atmosphere at Prince Orlovsky’s parties resembles to a certain extent the mood that prevails during carnival time in Rio de Janeiro today. His guests cast away all of their inhibitions for one night. The profound, elemental propensity for pleasure bubbling in their subconscious that has to be repressed during normal, everyday life can now gush out freely and spontaneously. Class distinctions are abolished. Everyone is on familiar, amicable terms with everyone else. All hearts seem to melt into a spirit of universal love. Ordinary people and noblemen alike use the familiar form of address which, in the German language, is “Du.” It goes without saying that once the night is over all this friendship, love, tolerance and euphoria will evaporate like a mirage. Yet while it lasts guests can act out their wildest, most improbable fantasies. By the strangest of paradoxes, these fantasies can correspond to profound aspects of their personalities that they would find difficult if not impossible to externalize in their so-called “normal” existences. Rosalinde is a case in point. As we have seen, at Orlovsky’s ball she comes disguised as an exotic Hungarian Countess in order to arouse her wayward husband and eventually heap ridicule on him. Yet when she sings her fiery, brilliant aria, the Czardas, her emotions express the kind of torrid, whirlwind relationship she would obviously love to have with a man. Her aria works up to an exciting climax on these words...

Dance with your lips to his, Oh, what a thrill it is,

Come, while you have a chance, to the fiddler’s dance.

It would be perfectly legitimate to see in this operetta the depiction of a society that seems to have lost its bearings, a society that, as I have already emphasized, seems completely unaware of the fact that in its obsessive penchant for pleasure, it may eventually summersault into the void. There is definitely a dark subtext concealed within the text of Die Fledermaus that can neutralize the effervescent gaiety of Johann Strauss’ music if we allow it to happen. But we shouldn’t let this somber interpretation prevail. We are at the opera, after all. We have a right to suspend our anxieties, stresses, and fears for the few hours that we are here. We have a right to swirl around in champagne bubbles. So let us honour Strauss’ invitation to cake, cream, and champagne, and to hell with philosophizing!