Opening Night - 9/20/2025 at 7pm - Covenant Church - Greer

---

Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899), Overture to Die Fledermaus (1874)

An overture may seem an abstract beginning to a concert of dance music, but the dance was always close to the center of Johann Strauss Jr.'s musical universe. The boy who took violin lessons behind his father's back would grow into the man who took over the family dance band, composing an astonishing variety of dance music, including raising the waltz to a high artistic level. At the same time, the innate lyricism of the Waltz King's music made him an obvious choice when, at the beginning of the 1870s, the Viennese theatre elite sought to create a home-grown version of the popular operettas of the French composer Jacques Offenbach. Operetta was a form of lighter comic opera in which the action moved forward through spoken dialogue rather than sung recitative and a musical style that emphasized memorable melodies, often based on dance rhythms. Strauss would compose fourteen works for the stage during the next two decades, works which time and again display his unerring sense of melody and deft orchestration (an aspect that drew the praise of none other than Johannes Brahms). Die Fledermaus (The Bat) is one of his finest and most popular, being an instant hit on its premiere in 1874.

The intricate plot revolves around an intrigue set in motion by Dr. Falke, the "bat" of the title, who many years earlier had been the victim of a practical joke by his headstrong friend Eisenstein. On the way home from a late-night costume party where the alcohol flowed freely, Eisenstein had left his drunken friend in a public place, where he woke to greet the passersby dressed as a bat. Dr. Falke's intrigue involves deception, impersonation, and memorable characters: Eisenstein's wife Rosalinde, who can't seem to shake off her ex-suitor Alfred, their maid Adele who aspires to be an actress, the prison warden Frank who has aspiration for higher social status, and the perpetually bored Prince Orlofsky, who simply wants a good laugh. The whole is preceded by the vigorous overture which is made up of tunes from the operetta: comic, mock-tragic, a polka, and, of course, the inevitable waltz.

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904), Slavonic Dances, Op. 72 (1887)

By 1874 Dvořák had gained a solid reputation in Prague with a string of works including symphonies, string quartets, and operas. But his existence teaching and performing around the city was rather precarious for his growing family. Also wishing to devote more time to composition, he applied for the Austrian State Prize in composition, a stipend that was intended to support talented composers for a year. He submitted no fewer than fifteen compositions and the jury, which included Johannes Brahms and Eduard Hanslick, the eminent Viennese music critic, was blown away by the talent displayed in the works. Dvořák not only won the award that year, but managed to repeat the feat twice more, in 1876 and 1877, prompting Brahms to introduce Dvořák to his publisher, Fritz Simrock. Simrock published Dvořák's Moravian Dances, the success of which led to a commission for something like Brahms's Hungarian Dances. The result was the first set of Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, for piano four hands, later orchestrated at the suggestion of the publisher. Both versions were huge successes, beginning Dvořák's international reputation, and prompting Simrock to request a second set, Op. 72, which the composer produced in 1886. Like its predecessor, it was published both in versions for piano four hands and for orchestra.

Op. 72 is imbued with the rhythms and forms of ethnic dances from the wider Slavic region. But Dvořák composed his own melodies, and the brilliant orchestration and harmonic richness raises them to the level of true symphonic miniatures. One wonders whether the composer, who by that time had written his Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, had it in mind to orchestrate the dances from the beginning. The dances (in tonight's performance order) are: 

1) Molto Vivace (Odzemek), a fast Slovak solo dance for men with an improvisatory character

2) Allegretto grazioso (Starodávný), a type of dumka derived from a Ukrainian prototype with sudden changes of dynamic and mood

3) Allegro (Skočná), a rapid dance in duple meter

4) Allegretto grazioso, a ruminative dumka

5) Poco Adagio - Vivace (Špacirka), the title means "to walk around" and the dance begins slowly, with a surprisingly symphonic "walking" section before the pace picks up in a lively duple meter

6) Moderato quasi Menuetto, another of Dvořák's beloved dumkas, 8) Grazioso e lento (Sousedská) - designated "quasi tempo di Valse," this Bohemian dance in a moderate triple-time has a "swaying" character similar to a slow waltz 

7) Allegro Vivace (Kolo) - an exuberant circle dance originally from Serbia.

Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884), Three Dances from The Bartered Bride (1866)

Smetana was born into a Bohemia under the authoritarian thumb of the Habsburg empire. German was the official language, and the Austrian aristocracy largely called the shots, both politically and culturally. Opportunities in Prague were limited for an ambitious young composer, leading Smetana to take a position in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1856. The years in Sweden saw him make significant progress in composition as well as suffering great personal loss in the deaths of his wife and three of his daughters. In April 1859 Smetana visited Liszt in Weimar, where he was introduced to Peter Cornelius's comic opera The Barber of Bagdad, leading the two to discuss what a new type of comic opera to complement Wagner's music drama might

look like.

By this time, the yoke of Austrian rule had loosened enough to support the establishment of a national theatre for Czech language opera, and Smetana would soon return to Prague, where he enjoyed a great success with The Brandenburgers in Bohemia in 1863. He plunged into his next opera project, this time a comic opera, The Bartered Bride, which was premiered inauspiciously on 30 May 1866 as Prussian troops were threatening to invade the city. But if the opera seemed a failure on its first performance, Smetana was compensated by appointment as principal conductor of the theatre later that year. He was thus able to revive the work and make revisions over the next few years, presenting the opera in its final form in 1870 when it became the hit that would secure his international reputation.

The opera takes place in a Bohemian village where Mařenka and Jenik are attracted to each other, but her parents have already arranged a marriage to Vašek, one of the sons of Micha, a wealthy landowner. After several twists and turns of the plot, the marriage broker Kecal convinces Jenik to accept cash for renouncing Mařenka, though Jenik imposes a condition that she should marry no one other than Micha's son. (The "bartered" bride of the title!) After much intrigue, it transpires that Vašek makes a complete fool of himself and Jenik is revealed to be the other "good for nothing" son of

Micha, clearing the way for a wedding and a hefty dowry!

The three dances from the opera are the Polka, forming the finale of Act I, originally with chorus, a Furiant with its characteristic rhythm shifting between duple and triple meter (ONE-TWO, ONE-TWO, ONE-TWO, ONE-TWO-THREE, ONE-TWO-THREE), danced near the beginning of Act II, and a lively Skočná (also known as Dance of the Comedians) from Act III.