About the work
Die Landstreicher is an operetta with a prologue and two acts by Carl Michael Ziehrer to a libretto by Leopold Krenn and Karl Lindau. It premiered on 29 July 1899 at the summer theatre 'Venedig in Wien'.
Plot
The vagrant couple August and Berta Fliederbusch find a valuable diamond necklace, which lands them first in prison and then in a career as confidence tricksters. Their path crosses that of the smitten Prince Gilka, the necklace's actual owner, until all confusions are resolved at an artists' festival in Munich.
Cultural significance
With its mockery of social pretension and broad comic mix-ups, the operetta ran for around 1,600 performances in Vienna; it is regarded as the last great success of the 'golden' era of Viennese operetta and cemented Ziehrer's reputation as successor to Johann Strauss and Carl Millöcker.