Sechs Sträuße

In the organizer's words:

Festive opera and operetta gala with music by Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Oscar Straus and others.

Presenter and show star Götz Alsmann invites the Dortmund audience to a festive opera and operetta gala that focuses entirely on composers with the name Strauss: And as we know, there are many of them in music history! The Strauss family around father Johann (1804 - 1849) and his sons Johann (1825 - 1899), Josef (1827 - 1870) and Eduard (1835 - 1916) formed a veritable dynasty of composers. The best-known of the bunch - who became famous as the "Waltz King" Johann Strauss (son) - is celebrating three anniversaries in the calendar years 2024 and 2025: the 125th anniversary of his death (03.06.2024), his 200th birthday (25.10.2025) and the 150th anniversary of the premiere of his probably most famous stage work Die Fledermaus (03.04.2024), the "Queen of Operettas".

Reason enough to celebrate and contrast the Strauss dynasty as well as namesakes who are not part of the Strauss family clan: Thus, the gala evening is completed by Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949), the undisputed master of late Romantic opera, and Oscar Straus (1870 - 1954), an outstanding representative of the so-called "Silver Operetta Era". All six composers share a preference for catchy melodies, an emphatically colorful instrumentation and an obvious penchant for lively waltzes in many of their pieces. The program includes excerpts from Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, Capriccio and Ariadne auf Naxos, Oscar Straus' Die lustigen Nibelungen, Johann Strauss' Eine Nacht in Venedig and, of course, his father's much-loved Radetzky March.

Look forward to the vocal performances of the Dortmund opera ensemble and be there when Götz Alsmann binds this summery bouquet of well-known opera and operetta melodies for you.