The International Success of Johann Strauss’ “Das Spitzentuch der Königin“ (1880)

Following the notable success of Die Fledermaus, Johann Strauss had fared less well with Cagliostro in Wien and Prinz Methusalem and disastrously with Blindekuh and he was constantly on the lookout for a winning libretto for, although he had been enthusiastic about each when setting it, it was inevitably the libretto that was ultimately blamed for his half- or whole-failures.

The secretary of the Stadttheater unter Laube, Heinrich Bohrmann who, with his partner Julius von St Albino Nigri, dit Riegen, had ambitions as librettists, had written a piece around a supposed adventure of the poet Cervantes which they hoped to have set by Suppé.

But Strauss, hearing of this, summoned Bohrmann to his presence and, having listened to him read his play, took it for himself. Aware that it was not wholly stageworthy, he passed it to the Theater an der Wien’s Richard Genée (and also, apparently, to a number of other folks, judging by the legal wrangles which later arose) for improvements, and the finished piece appeared on that theatre’s stage in Vienna on 1 October 1880.

The under-aged King of Portugal (Eugenie Erdösy) is kept away from both affairs of state and from his young Queen (Karoline Tellheim) by the regent Villalobos (Felix Schweighofer) who is plotting a coup, but the poet Cervantes (Ferdinand Schütz) and his sweetheart Irene (Hermine Meyerhoff) secretly prepare the King to announce his majority and thus end the hated regency. Villalobos uses the handkerchief of the title, dangerously but innocently inscribed by the lonely Queen with the words ‘A Queen loves you, though you are not a King’, to turn the King against his wife and Cervantes, and back to reliance on himself, but a bit of disguise and a few opportune explanations round off the final act and the action happily. Therese Schäfer played the Marquise de Villareal, the Queen’s duenna, and Alexander Girardi supported as the King’s tutor, Don Sancho d’Avellaneda.

The similarities of Bohrmann’s starting point with the very recent Le Petit Duc and the handful of reminiscences of La Grande-Duchesse seemed to worry no one, and Das Spitzentuch der Königin was well received.

Strauss’s score turned in several numbers which became popular, the King’s waltzing Truffel-Couplet ‘Stets kommt mir wieder in den Sinn’ remembering – with further Offenbachian reminiscence, this time of Geneviève de Brabant – the delicious pie his new wife served him on their wedding night, and the waltz poem ‘Wo die wilde Rosen erblüht’, sung by Cervantes to open the second act, winning special favour. Although neither is now remembered as a song, their melodies are well known as the principal themes of Strauss’s concert piece Rosen aus dem Süden.

Franz Steiner’s production at the Theater an der Wien played through the month of October, and the piece was subsequently brought back for additional performances in repertoire, playing its 55th night on 13 February 1883. It was revived by Wilhelm Karczag in 1901 with Julie Kopácsi-Karczag as the King and Carl Streitmann as Cervantes, and again in 1911 with Ida Russka (King), Poldi Rizek (Queen) and Max Rohr (Cervantes), at both the Theater an der Wien and the Raimundtheater, ultimately bringing its tally up to 100 performances at its original home.

Berlin followed the original production of what looked like being Strauss’s most successful piece since Die Fledermaus quickly, but although the Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater had the rather uninspiring libretto revised by Julius Rosen, the show did not prove overly successful.

Similarly, György Verő’s Hungarian version, with Ilka Pálmay (King) and Célia Margó (Irene) starring, was only reasonably received in a delayed Budapest production, where it had the misfortune to open just after the highly successful local piece Az eleven ördög. Neither Paris nor London took the piece on and the show ultimately had its best career, in spite of an unpromising start, in America.

The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief (ad Randolph T Pursy) was selected by Rudolf Aronson and John McCaull to initiate their grand new musical theatre, the Casino Theater. It opened, with John Perugini (Cervantes), Lilly Post (the Queen), Louise Paullin (the King), Joseph Greenfelder (Villalobos), Jennie Reiffarth (Marquise) and Mathilde Cottrelly (Irene) in the leading rôles, only to be met by a storm of protest. The theatre was not sufficiently finished to be comfortable. The producers closed at the end of the week, sent the company off to Philadelphia’s Broad Street Theatre and to Chicago, and brought them back (with William Carleton now Cervantes and the young Francis Wilson in Girardi’s rôle) a month later (30 December).

This time, in a new and well-appointed house, and a new and improved adaptation (by Sydney Rosenfeld) they were a hit, running 113 consecutive performances followed by a quick return (11 June 1883) when a following production, La Princesse de Trébizonde, was sabotaged by one of Lillian Russell’s contract-breaking walk-outs. The piece was subsequently produced at the Thalia Theater (1 October 1883) in its original German with Schütz playing his original rôle alongside Fräuleins Seebold (King), Engländer (Queen) and Schatz (Irene).

It did well in the country, was revived in the German theatres, played in many of the country’s summer comic opera seasons and musical repertoire houses, won the honour of a burlesque, The Queen’s Safety-Pin (1889) and, when all was said and totted up, actually played more performances in America than in any other area. It was also, throughout the 19th century, far and away the most popular of Johann Strauss’s stage works in the United States.

The English-language version was also seen, though much more briefly, in Australia where it was introduced by soprano Clara Merivale (Irene) and her English Comic Opera Company, featuring Knight Aston (a tenor King), W H Woodfield (Cervantes), Katharine Hardy (Queen) and Edwin Kelly (Villalobos) through a short season.

In 1931 a revised version of the show written by Rudolf Österreicher and Julius Wilhelm, which kept the title but replaced the characters and the plot with a tale which was now set in Vienna, Salzburg and Munich in 1842, was played at the Johann Strauss-Theater in Vienna. Hans Heinz Bollmann was Nikolaus von Tomba, Mizzi Zwerenz the Fürstin-Mutter, Anny Coty played Rosette Falcari and the music was ‘für die Bühne musikalisch neuarbeitet’ by Karl Pauspertl. But things didn’t go any better with a conventional new libretto than they had with a conventional old one, and Das Spitzentuch der Königin remained in only a mid-list position amongst the successes and slightly-successes of Strauss’s operetten.

Update:

In 2007, the Staatsoperette Dresden brought back Das Spitzentuch der Königin as part of their Strauss revival series. Ernst Theis conducted, a cd was released a year later on the label cpo. New dialogues were written by André Meyer, even though the ‘Kritische Neuausgabe’ of the material by Michael Rot was used (which is part of the Neue Johann Strauss Gesamtausgabe).

In January 2025 the newly renovated Theater an der Wien re-opened with a production of Spitzentuch der Königin, it was conducted by Martynas Stakionis and broadcast on tv. Diana Haller played the King, Elissa Huber the Queen, Maximilian Mayer sang the rôle of Cervantes.

Germany: Friedrich-Wilhelmstädtisches Theater 24 November 1880; USA: Casino Theater The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief 21 October 1882; Hungary: (Ger) 21 February 1881, Népszinház A királyné csipkekendője 29 December 1885; Australia: Theatre Royal, Melbourne The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief 12 August 1893