Der Zigeunerbaron

Der Zigeunerbaron reached the stage of the Theater an der Wien on 24 October 1885, the evening before Strauss's sixtieth birthday. Ignaz Schnitzer's libretto derives from Sáffi, a story by the Hungarian writer Mór Jókai, who had originally been approached about writing the text himself. The subject let Strauss work Hungarian idioms — verbunkos rhythms, csárdás patterns — into a Viennese operetta frame. Besides Die Fledermaus it is the only operetta of his to hold a permanent place in the German repertoire.