The Fortune Teller is an operetta in three acts composed by Victor Herbert, with a libretto by Harry B. Smith. After a brief tryout in Toronto, it premiered on Broadway on September 26, 1898, at Wallack's Theatre and ran for 40 performances. Star Alice Nielsen and many of the original company traveled to London, where the piece opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre on April 9, 1901, running for 88 performances. It was revived in New York on November 4, 1929, at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre, starring Tessa Kosta, and ran for 16 performances. The piece continued to be revived, including by the Light Opera of Manhattan in the late 20th century and the Comic Opera Guild in the early 21st century.

Victor August Herbert was an American composer, cellist and conductor of English and Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I. He was also prominent among the Tin Pan Alley composers and was later a founder of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). A prolific composer, Herbert produced two operas, a cantata, 43 operettas, incidental music to 10 plays, 31 compositions for orchestra, nine band compositions, nine cello compositions, five violin compositions with piano or orchestra, 22 piano compositions and numerous songs, choral compositions and orchestrations of works by other composers, among other music.