Strauss was forty-six before he turned his attention, with some diffidence at first, to the stage. He wrote one operetta, a second, and then a third ; and with the third, that scintillating masterpiece, Die Fledermaus, the Theater an der Wien, where all the Strauss operettas were mounted, took on a tradition that has for us a counterpart in the tradition attaching to the Savoy Theatre, London, the home for so long of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.