Until the latter part of 1886, there was only one real ballet premiere at the Hungarian
Royal Opera House: the Wiener Walzer [Viennese Waltz], performed on May 16, 1885.
The piece, which proved successful in the imperial city, also received great acclaim
in Budapest a few months later. The creators of the ballet did not strive for a classical
plot: in the piece, individual images present the major stages of the development
of the waltz, with a loose dramaturgical thread included for the sole purpose of holding
the piece together and music comprised of a medley of handpicked waltzes. The piece
was very well received at the time and was featured as part of the repertoire for
decades. This study attempts to present danced history primarily through the reception
of the piece in Vienna and, to a lesser extent, Budapest, while also touching upon
its appearance in a charity performance by amateur aristocrats in Kolozsvár; furthermore,
this article also emphasizes how the Wiener Walzer can be interpreted in the context
of urban and social history.