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Richard Strauss’s Arabella, Op. 79, is a lyric comedy in three acts composed between 1930 and 1932 to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was first performed at the Dresden State Opera on 1 July 1933 under Clemens Krauss. Arabella was Strauss’s final collaboration with Hofmannsthal, who died in 1929 before the libretto was fully completed. The opera is set in Vienna during the 1860s.

The story centres on the aristocratic Waldner family, whose financial difficulties lead them to seek a wealthy match for their elder daughter, Arabella. At the same time, her younger sister Zdenka has been raised as a boy to save money. Much of the drama unfolds through mistaken identities, concealed emotions, and questions of fidelity, culminating in Arabella’s relationship with the Croatian landowner Mandryka.

Musically, Arabella belongs to Strauss’s late operatic style and is often seen as a companion piece to Der Rosenkavalier, though its tone is generally more restrained and introspective. The score combines extended conversational scenes with lyrical set pieces, and Strauss uses dance rhythms, especially the waltz, to evoke the atmosphere of imperial Vienna without turning the work into straightforward nostalgia.

Although the opera contains comic elements, its treatment of personal relationships is more serious than that of Strauss’s earlier comedies. The central characters are drawn with unusual psychological detail, and the conclusion depends less on theatrical resolution than on mutual trust and reconciliation. Over time, Arabella has come to occupy an important place among Strauss’s late operas for its combination of conversational fluidity, emotional restraint, and orchestral refinement.