Concert in Moscow

Johann Strauss II
Overture to the Operetta «Indigo and the Forty Thieves»
(1871)

Long famous as a composer of dance music, in the mid-1860s Johann Strauss II made a completely fresh start: the triumphant success of Jacques Offenbach’s stage works in Vienna, economic considerations, and last but not least the expectations of the public led him to try his hand at composing operettas. His first attempts, for example to set to music a libretto by Josef Braun, Die lustigen Weiber von Wien (The Merry Wives of Vienna), were dismal failures. Strauss had never learned how to set words to music and express their contents in music. Maximilian Steiner, the artistic director of the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, recognised Strauss’s problem and put him in touch with a collaborator in the person of the experienced theatre conductor Richard Genée. In an interview with Curt von Celau of the Deutsche Revue journal in 1885, Genée recalled, ‘When Steiner was director I was given the task of getting Johann Strauss to compose for the stage, and used my experience of the theatre to provide help and support for him when he composed his first operettas Indigo and Fledermaus.’
And so on 26 May 1870 the contract was signed with the management of the Theater an der Wien. Finally, on 10 February 1871, the first performance of Strauss’s first operetta, Indigo und die vierzig Räuber, took place. Even before Strauss had conducted the overture there was resounding applause.
Before then, on New Year’s Day 1871, the Fremden-Blatt newspaper reported that Strauss had played the overture at a concert in the apartments of Archduchess Sophie and the twelve-year-old Crown Prince Rudolf had commented favourably, ‘Je suis très content.’
In the concert hall the overture was first heard in the ‘Promenade Concert’ given by Johann’s youngest brother Eduard in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein on 19 February 1871, with Eduard conducting the Strauss Orchestra.

Synopsis: Prof. Norbert Rubey

English translations: Leigh H. Bailey

Johann Strauss (Sohn): Operette «Indigo» (Titelblatt Klavierausgabe)

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