Besides “fairy tale,” another characterization of the work that crops up in the creators’ letters and among commentators is “operetta.” In Arabella there are certainly elements that suggest operetta, of the distinctly Austro-Hungarian kind. In the French and English species of operetta (as typified by Offenbach and Gilbert and Sullivan, respectively), parody is the dominant element and sentiment the secondary one, whereas in the Vienna/Budapest sort those proportions are reversed.^(I) But Arabella is no operetta, for at least four reasons: spoken dialogue is present for only a few brief moments, and carries no narrative burden; the roles, even the supporting ones, are of a decidedly heavier vocal calibre than is found in operetta, and well beyond the technical capacities of even the more  accomplished operetta singers, with the exception of occasions when certified opera singers (e. g., a Lehmann, Tauber, or Wittrisch) stepped in; the writing for the orchestra, which is more than double the size of a typical operetta’s, is of far greater complexity than any operetta’s, and often stands in a more intimate and nuanced relationship with the vocal setting; and most importantly of all, Arabella aims to carry us far beyond an operetta’s depth of emotional and intellectual commitment. Hofmannsthal and Strauss surely hoped that their work’s intermittent surface of audience-friendly entertainment usages would help pull us into the stage world they were asking us to enter. But once we were there, they wanted to us to experience a profound sense of lasting human truths. They weren’t just kidding around.

The danger in this mix of genres—one of my stumbling blocks with the piece—is that we don’t know what to believe, what level of reality we are meant to accept. Much of this uneasiness attaches to the character of Zdenka. If we are intended to buy into the notion that her male guise as “Zdenko” fools everyone she comes in contact with over a period of months or years—most obviously Matteo, who takes her for boon companion and ally (laughs to be scored with fending off physical contact)—then we truly are in OperettaLand and cannot take her very seriously. Then, if we’re asked to swallow the proposition that girls are all alike in the dark and that Matteo does not register at some point in an interlude of lovemaking (and this has to be Zdenka’s virginity going the way of all flesh) that there is something strangely Zenko-ish about his sexual partner, we’re confronted with rather distasteful farce, and requested to dismiss the matter in the name of Viennese sophistication, or perhaps because Zdenka and Matteo are only the Second Couple and thus require less of our emotional investment. But that’s clearly not what either Hofmannsthal’s words or Strauss’s music hope to convey. Lotte Lehmann, who sang the first Vienna performances shortly after the Dresden premiere, confesses (in her Five Operas and Richard Strauss) that of all the Strauss operas she sang, she was never able to take this one to heart, primarily because of this “implausible, and in fact wholly incredible situation.” I’m with her, unless performance can somehow win me over.