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Bittersweet Vienna
Volksoper
05/25/2026 - & May, 31, June 2, 6, 12, 18*, 21, 2026
Emmerich Kálmán : Die Csárdásfürstin
Annette Dasch/Ursula Pfitzner* (Sylva Varescu), Alexandre Beuchat/Daniel Schmutzhard* (Edwin), Jakob Semotan (Boni), Juliette Khalil/Jaye Simmons* (Stasi), Regula Rosin (Anhilte), Roland Koch (Leopold Maria, Prince von und zu Lippert-Weylersheim), Lukas Watzl (Rohnsdorff), Kurt Schreibmayer*/Martin Enenkel*/Johannes Deckenbach/Axel Herrig*/Marco Di Sapia*/Karl-Michael Ebner (Feri Bácsi)
Chor der Volksoper Wien, Roger Díaz-Cajamarca (chorus master), Orchester der Volksoper Wien, Alfred Eschwé*/Tobias Wögerer (conductor)
Johannes Erath (stage director), Bernhard Hammer (sets), Gesine Völlm (costumes), Nicol Hungsberg (lighting), Miles Hoare (choreography), Bibi Abel (videography), Gerald Maria Bauer (dramaturgy)
D. Schmutzhard, U. Pfitzner (© Monika Rittershaus/Volksoper Wien)
I did not know what to expect from Johannes Erath’s first staging of an operetta. Of his numerous opera stagings that I have seen so far, most were disappointing, be it his Otello in Frankfurt, his humourless Le nozze di Figaro in Dresden or his Gothic I masnadieri in Munich. The only bright light was his original staging of Ermione at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro. Surprisingly, his take on Kálmán’s Die Csárdásfürstin was a revelation, fusing nostalgia, social satire and sheer entertainment.
The operetta recounts the tryst between Budapest cabaret star Sylva Varescu and Viennese artistocrat Edwin Roland. The two are in love but Edwin’s noble parents will never consent to such a match. As Sylva prepares to go on tour in America, Edwin writes a promissory note to marry Sylva within ten weeks. The very same day, the worried parents announce Edwin’s engagement with his cousin Stasi, more formally known as Countess Anastasia Eggenberg. His cousin Eugen, dispatched to Budapest to bring back the prodigal son to Vienna for military service, reveals the news to the great chagrin of Sylva.
Just before the expiry of the promissory note, Sylva visits Edwin’s palace in Vienna, pretending to be married to her noble admirer Count Bonifaz Káncsiánu or Boni. The latter meets Edwin’s fiancée Stasi and the two fall in love. Edwin makes the faux pas of telling Sylva that his parents would consent to his marrying her if she divorces Boni, as now she would have become noble through marriage. Sylva is offended, tears up the promissory note and declines Edwin’s offer of marriage, declaring herself to be no noblewoman but merely a “Czárdas Princess”.
In the final act, an admirer of Sylva, Feri, accompanies her from Budapest to Vienna on her way to sail to America. Feri recognises Anhilte, Edwin’s “noble” mother as another cabaret star from a previous generation. Edwin’s mother joins the two young couples, Sylva/Edwin and Stasi/Boni, on Sylva’s American tour.
In the present staging, Erath strips away much of the operetta genre’s customary “kitsch” charm and poses the unsettling question: what purpose can theatre serve when the world around it is falling apart? This question is at least as pertinent now as it was a century ago.
The answer unfolds in a production that is visually striking and intellectually ambitious. Bernhard Hammer’s sets presents an exposed theatrical space dominated by skeletal structures of light, revolving platforms, and vast technical surfaces. Bibi Abel’s video projections manage to conjure fading images of imperial splendour—ballrooms, chandeliers, galloping horses and even Vienna’s Spanish Riding School—while the stage itself is haunted by reminders of war and decay, such as the two moribund or dead horses that shock in the middle of the stage. Obviously, the latter symbolise the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in the process of collapsing. The visual language suggests a world already becoming a memory even as its inhabitants continue to dance within it.
Erath’s central achievement lies in his refusal to treat the operetta as escapism. The production constantly juxtaposes entertainment and catastrophe, glamour and ruin. Sylva’s ascent onto the stage in spectacular revue attire becomes less a star entrance than a desperate act of theatrical resurrection. Throughout the evening, characters appear trapped between performance and reality, clinging to ritual and romance while history closes in around them. The result is a reading that reveals the melancholy already embedded in Kálmán’s score rather than imposing it from outside. Thus, what Kálmán offers—possibly subconsciously—is accentuated in a way that may be painful for some. This may explain the negative reaction at this staging when it was premiered in 2025.
In the end, Erath’s Die Csárdásfürstin is less an operetta revival than a meditation on cultural memory. It challenges assumptions about what operetta is and what it can mean in the twenty‑first century. For that reason alone, it remains one of the more thought‑provoking operetta stagings that I have seen. Hopefully, it will inspire others.
The success of Erath’s concept ultimately depends on performers capable of embodying both the operetta’s glamour and its underlying melancholy. Fortunately, the Volksoper cast largely rises to the challenge.
As Sylva Varescu, Ursula Pfitzner brings star quality to the role with her powerful and warm voice. Dramatically, she masterfully portrays a fragile woman, not merely shaken by the contrast between her social class and that of the man she loves. By not casting a young soubrette in the role, this Sylva subtly coveys the fears of a somewhat older artist and woman. This gives an additional layer of gravitas to the role without lapsing into sentimentality.
Opposite her, baritone Daniel Schmutzhard offers a dashing Edwin, both a handsome Prince Charming and a somewhat foolish rich lover boy. Purposefully, Erath’s take on the role is that of a young man, rather unsure of himself and of the changing times. Vocally, he impressed with his clarion tenor. His duets with Pfitzner were not the usual operetta sparkling flirtations but ones revealing emotional sincerity.
In the supporting role of Boni, tenor Jakob Semotan almost stole the show. Channeling Joel Grey’s Master of Ceremonies in the film Cabaret (1972), Semotan is a Boni of ambiguous sexuality, which makes his infatuation with Stasi all the more intriguing. Recently admired as the timid Leopold in Im weissen Rössl in Vienna, Semotan is an extraordinary actor endowed with a light and flexible voice and natural stage presence.
The Stasi of Jaye Simmons was full of charm as well as sadness. The latter conveys the rather sad life that a young noblewoman at the time, awaiting being swept off her feet by a suitable match, be it her cousin Edwin or the more extravagant Boni. Simmons brought intelligence and depth to this soubrette.
Singers of the older generation, such as Regula Rosin provided Anhilte, Edwin’s mother, with both vocal authority and unexpected humanity. Her dark, resonant contralto had both the apparent rigidity of aristocracy and the raspy sensuality of the diva of yesteryear. Likewise, Roland Koch’s sonorous bass perfectly embodied the fading certainties of the old order. In Act II, in a parody of titled aristocracy the guest were introduced by citing operatic noble characters from Der Rosenkavalier, Le nozze di Figaro, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and more, which was quite funny.
Kálmán’s Die Csárdásfürstin, premiered in 1915 in the first year of WWI, is his most famous work. Befittingly, it captures the spirit of a disappearing world, the world of multi‑ethnic, tolerant and aristocratic Habsburg Austria-Hungary. Oddly enough, Hilter was so fond of Kálmán’s music that he named this Hungarian Jew an “honorary Aryan”, a title the composer honourably declined, preferring to escape to Paris and then to the United States. Kálmán’s music surpasses Lehár’s and rivals Johann Strauss Jr’s. Had the two world wars not disrupted his career, one wonders what this gifted composer would have produced. One curiosity is his 1928 Die Herzogin von Chicago which blends Viennese waltzes and jazz. Hopefully, it will be part of the regular operetta repertoire one day in the near future.
Ossama el Naggar
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