Act II: Couplets 'Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein' (Die Fledermaus)

The immediate source was Le Réveillon, a Paris vaudeville by Meilhac and Halévy of 1872, itself loosely derived from a Berlin farce of 1851; the Viennese adaptation moved the action to a New Year's ball. Johann Strauss II conducted the first performance at the Theater an der Wien on 5 April 1874. Early foreign productions were uneven — Paris in 1877 failed — and it was Mahler's staging in Hamburg that carried the piece into the opera houses rather than the operetta theatres, where it has remained. Behind the waltzes lies a comedy of revenge in which everyone is disguised and nobody is punished.