Strauss, Die Fledermaus n3, duo

Complications arise. (These, of course, will all be resolved happily in the Act III finale.) After Rosalinde and the lawyer Blind have left the room, Eisenstein's friend Falke arrives to invite him to a party that evening. Eager to escape, Eisenstein agrees but says that Rosalinde must not know. What Eisenstein himself does not know is that Falke is planning pay-back for a practical joke that left him wandering the city after a ball dressed in a bat costume (hence, the title Fledermaus, of course).

Falke opens the number with his invitation, "Komm' mit mir zum Souper," an Allegretto grazioso in polka rhythms. The design has a dance's clarity, too: introduction (4 bars), strain 1, strain 2, repeat introduction, strain 1, strain 3 (coda; repeated to equal 16 bars). The principal strain balances rising and falling lines beautifully:

The coda strain brings the rising line to the fore through Falke's expansion of it as he presses his invitation and Eisenstein at last agrees:

After some musical banter back and forth, they return to the polka, this time making a simple attempt at closing off the rising line, but the final ^8 is undercut dramatically by the harmony:

The coda follows (in A major), another polka (the polka schnell now: Allegro), in which first Eisenstein, then both, sing in high spirits.

Although the ending offers a ^7-^8 ascent (in the orchestra, a high A5 undoubtedly also chosen by singers in some productions), it is not convincing overall, as the focal tone ^3 (as C#5) is quite firmly established and maintained throughout.