Aufforderung zum Tanz

The song the men are singing on the street at the beginning of the movie is from "Abu Hassan", an musical play by Carl Maria von Weber from 1811. The song is from from the act Nr. 3 named "Choir of the creditors". The song that Carl Maria von Weber sang himself in the movie is the follow up as performed in the actual play. The play is later rehearsed and performed in the movie.

Caroline Brandt is asking Carl Maria von Weber why he is not writing an opera about the own forest, the own people, meaning a story set in Germany and not in the Oriental regions, to which Weber is excited. However in real life von Weber already wrote various operas that were set in a German or Central European region, like "Silvana" from 1810 about a mountain forest Germany, "Peter Schmoll and his neighbors" from 1802 about Germany who try to build a new life in the Netherlands after the war, "Rübezahl" from 1805, based on the German legend of the same name etc.