Decline and fall: the luxe facades of 1860s Vienna hid the decline of the Hapsburg empire. Jorg von Uthmann examines the ways in which the city in transition provided the ideal backdrop for Strauss's Arabella.(Critical Essay)

It is not surprising that, of the six operas Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote together, three are set in Vienna. Hofmannsthal was born there and left his hometown only to move to the suburbs. Strauss too knew the city well. He lived there for five years when he was, in tandem with Franz Schalk, director of the State Opera. But the Vienna of Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos is quite different from the one depicted in Arabella. For the earlier operas Hofmannsthal invented a rococo utopia with silver roses presented to blue-blooded brides and rich sponsors who see no harm in mixing opera seria and commedia dell'arte. Arabella is set in the much more ...