Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n5, Act I Finale, "Mein schönes, grosses Vogelhaus"

The final two scenes of Act I involve a farewell kiss that Alfred manages to extract from Rosalinde and Alfred's departure, which is initiated by the warden Frank ("Nein, nein, ich zweifle gar nicht mehr") but whose principal tune is his "Mein schönes, grosses Vogelhaus," a comic march:

Eventually all three characters sing the tune together and then close with a 6/8-time coda, whose tune is:

This is repeated, with an elaborate and forceful cadence at the end of which Rosalinde finds her way to a high C:


Here is the line she follows from ^3 (E5) to ^8 (C6), in course of which ^5 substitutes for the scalar ^7, presumably to give even more dramatic weight to the final high note.