San Francisco Opera - Arabella

Give love until the day we die

A breezy romantic comedy unfolds in the gilded ballrooms of Vienna in Richard Strauss's effervescent Arabella. Destined to wed the suitor of her parents choosing to save the family name yet in love with a face she has passed in the street, true love will out after a series of errors including mischief, mistaken identity and a just a little bit of cross-dressing.

As her parents plot her impending marriage, Arabella passes a stranger in the street and is immediately smitten. Later on, at a glittering costume ball, she meets him again, unaware that he is Mandryka, the man her father has intended for her. Meanwhile her sister Zdenka who has been raised as a man called "Zdenko", has been corresponding with the lovestruck Matteo under her sister's name. When Mandryka overhears Zdenko fixing an assignation with between Matteo and 'Arabella' his jealousy threatens the whole arrangement!