Schlagobers

[1] While serving as co-director of the Vienna State Opera with Franz Schalk from 1919 until 1924, Strauss sought to revive the fortunes of the resident ballet company, struggling after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

He recruited choreographer Heinrich Kröller (1880–1930) from the Berlin State Opera and collaborated with him on a series of productions, restaging his earlier work for the Ballets Russes Josephslegende (1922), and rearranging the music of Schumann, François Couperin, Beethoven, and Gluck for, respectively, Karneval (1922), Ballettsoirée (1923), Die Ruinen von Athen (1924), and Don Juan (1924).

[2] A group of children celebrate their confirmation in a Konditorei (a Viennese cake shop), where many of the confections come alive, with marzipan marches and chocolate dances.

Having overindulged, one boy falls ill and hallucinates, leading to the party of Princess Pralinée, a trio of amorous liqueurs, and a riot of cakes pacified by beer.

[4] Strauss' score employs a thematic-developmental treatment of motifs and was, according to contemporary critic Julius Korngold, "too elaborately artistic, too massive and heavily developed, and not dancerly enough...