An apt subtitle for “Mein Herr Marquis,” Adele’s “Laughing Song,” from Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus would be “the best defense is a good offense.” Both she and her employer, Eisenstein, have come to Prince Orlovsky’s party under assumed identities, and each has the potential to expose the other. With this aria, Adele must convey to Eisenstein (and to him alone) that if he continues to identify her as his wife’s chambermaid rather than as the actress she is pretending to be, she could expose him as being a banker rather than the French Marquis he is claiming to be. The upward leap lends a pointed emphasis to the first appearance of the word “Marquis.” Adele’s point is that “a man like you” – a phony Marquis – ought to understand that it is a dangerous game to risk exposing another. (In the 22nd bar of the voice part, the final note ought to be B both for the voice and for the orchestral doubling–some editions incorrectly give D. In other words, the intervals parallel those of bar 18. The Eulenberg orchestra score is the best textual source for this opera.)
In the second verse, Adele ingeniously explains his “mistake”: “It certainly seems to me that love must have clouded your vision; you imagine you see this beautiful chambermaid everywhere you look!” (Unfortunately, this idea is not preserved in either of the best-known English translations.) We Americans pride ourselves on being democratic, and the idea of a man falling in love with a chambermaid may not strike us as droll, but in Vienna, Anton Bruckner’s proposing to chambermaids was a delightful running joke among his contemporaries. Although Adele is herself a chambermaid, her suggestion that Eisenstein is in love with a chambermaid is intended to crush him with embarrassment. Thus, if in the first verse, she is implicitly threatening exposure of his identity; in the second verse, she is demonstrating her ability to ridicule him. Her delivery here should be maliciously teasing. In the chorus, Adele may be forcing herself to laugh, but she is pretending to resist the rude impulse to laugh (“The matter is so funny that you must excuse me if I laugh” ). Her laughter may not be convincing (forced laughter never is), but her resourcefulness and courage inspire our admiration. The first laughs are mastered within a single measure, but increase in violence, climaxing in the high B. The two short, soft trills which follow can be used as vocal acting: Adele is pretending that, although she is trying to master herself, she cannot fully suppress two further little giggles. In the eighth bar of the second ending, the A-sharp is often carelessly sung incorrectly as A-natural. As in the previous bar, the point before the run changes direction is a half-step.
Die Fledermaus is one of the few works that is still often sung in English translation. No singing translation, no matter how good, can preserve all aspects of the original. From a verbal standpoint, the once-popular Fledermaus translation of Howard Dietz, the great Broadway lyricist, is indeed often clever and witty. However, such wordplay is difficult to project, and does not contribute to character. (“What a bloomer/full of humor/very very/merry merry…” ). I find the simpler translation of Ruth and Thomas Martin far superior, not merely because it is more faithful to the meaning of the German, but because it gives the actor or actress more to work with. (“It’s too funny/please excuse me/I can’t help it/you amuse me…”) Their final version is to be found in the Schirmer score, rather than in the Schirmer aria anthology.
