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Die Fledermaus
Civic Opera House, Chicago, Illinois, Sat, May 12, 1951 Matinee
In English
Die Fledermaus (40)
Johann Strauss II | Karl Haffner/Richard Gen?e
Review 1:
Review of Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune
Munsel?s Mischievous Adele Gayest Thing in Met?s ?Fledermaus?
No wonder Rudolf Bing has a look of sardonic amusement. The Metropolitan?s new manager took a fantastic chance his first season in America. He turned the bubbling froth of ?Fledermaus? into a mixture of corn likker and stale beer ? and sells the stuff on every street corner at even more fantastic prices. The medicine man act landed at Madison and Wacker last night to open the Met?s week-end visit in the Civic Opera house, and except for Patrice Munsel?s mischievous Adele, I doubt that I ever saw a stodgier performance.
?Fledermaus? is Viennese flourish of lightness, elegance, brilliance, and style. A kind of cynical corruption is its background, a lilting flood of melody while its intrigues into a pattern never quite allowed to jell. It isn?t the kind of show you ?explain? with heavy handed prolog delivered by John Brownlee set off in colored lights with a bat silhouetted over his head. It isn?t a show for actors without glamor ? or voice. It doesn?t take to clumsy English adaptation and coarse stage direction. If Garson Kanin is truly responsible for both, he had better stick to ?Born Yesterday? and leave Bad Ischl alone.
Where the book, a genuine atrocity, is concerned, I am afraid Mr. Kanin is guilty on all counts, and he should keep the direction in shape or take his name off the program. Still, if he is responsible for Miss Munsel, he deserves an isolated bow. Her masquerading chambermaid is delightful to look at, charming to hear, and she has an authentic champagne bubble, not to be confused with the others? beer burp. When she sings the laughing song, translated by Howard Dietz as ?Look me over once, look me over twice,? she can inflect a grace note with just the faintest waggle of a bustle, and you know it carried to the last seat in the house.
Comparatively, Regina Resnik?s Rosalinda is a buxom hausfrau with coarse manners, handsome shoulders, and a way of making the czardas sound like a yodel in embryo. Richard Tucker still has that beautiful voice, a startling thing in this broken down troupe, but his Alfred is a horror of bad costuming and worse direction. Charles Kullman?s Eisenstein, John Brownlee?s Falke, Jarmila Novonta?s Orlofsky, all are merely bores.
Zachary Solov?s ballet was typical Metropolitan ballet, which comes under the head of something it is tactful not to mention. And Rolf Gerard?s first setting was as bad as his garden party was effective. Tibor Kozma?s conducting was acrobatic in accent, and the chorus now and then got its teeth in a solid Straussian sound. I was not around long enough to see Jack Gilford as the drunken jailer, but a scout tells me it was Gilford in excelsis, including the filching of a whisky bottle from a tuba helpfully handed up from the orchestra pit.
Search by season: 1950-51
Search by title: Die Fledermaus,
Met careers
Die Fledermaus
Civic Opera House, Chicago, Illinois, Sat, May 12, 1951 Matinee
In English
Die Fledermaus (40)
Johann Strauss II | Karl Haffner/Richard Gen?e
- Rosalinde
- Regina Resnik
- Eisenstein
- Charles Kullman
- Adele
- Patrice Munsel
- Alfred
- Eugene Conley
- Prince Orlofsky
- Jarmila Novotna
- Dr. Falke
- John Brownlee
- Dr. Blind
- Paul Franke
- Frank
- Hugh Thompson
- Ida
- Suzanne Ames
- Frosch
- Jack Gilford
- Conductor
- Tibor Kozma
Review 1:
Review of Claudia Cassidy in the Chicago Tribune
Munsel?s Mischievous Adele Gayest Thing in Met?s ?Fledermaus?
No wonder Rudolf Bing has a look of sardonic amusement. The Metropolitan?s new manager took a fantastic chance his first season in America. He turned the bubbling froth of ?Fledermaus? into a mixture of corn likker and stale beer ? and sells the stuff on every street corner at even more fantastic prices. The medicine man act landed at Madison and Wacker last night to open the Met?s week-end visit in the Civic Opera house, and except for Patrice Munsel?s mischievous Adele, I doubt that I ever saw a stodgier performance.
?Fledermaus? is Viennese flourish of lightness, elegance, brilliance, and style. A kind of cynical corruption is its background, a lilting flood of melody while its intrigues into a pattern never quite allowed to jell. It isn?t the kind of show you ?explain? with heavy handed prolog delivered by John Brownlee set off in colored lights with a bat silhouetted over his head. It isn?t a show for actors without glamor ? or voice. It doesn?t take to clumsy English adaptation and coarse stage direction. If Garson Kanin is truly responsible for both, he had better stick to ?Born Yesterday? and leave Bad Ischl alone.
Where the book, a genuine atrocity, is concerned, I am afraid Mr. Kanin is guilty on all counts, and he should keep the direction in shape or take his name off the program. Still, if he is responsible for Miss Munsel, he deserves an isolated bow. Her masquerading chambermaid is delightful to look at, charming to hear, and she has an authentic champagne bubble, not to be confused with the others? beer burp. When she sings the laughing song, translated by Howard Dietz as ?Look me over once, look me over twice,? she can inflect a grace note with just the faintest waggle of a bustle, and you know it carried to the last seat in the house.
Comparatively, Regina Resnik?s Rosalinda is a buxom hausfrau with coarse manners, handsome shoulders, and a way of making the czardas sound like a yodel in embryo. Richard Tucker still has that beautiful voice, a startling thing in this broken down troupe, but his Alfred is a horror of bad costuming and worse direction. Charles Kullman?s Eisenstein, John Brownlee?s Falke, Jarmila Novonta?s Orlofsky, all are merely bores.
Zachary Solov?s ballet was typical Metropolitan ballet, which comes under the head of something it is tactful not to mention. And Rolf Gerard?s first setting was as bad as his garden party was effective. Tibor Kozma?s conducting was acrobatic in accent, and the chorus now and then got its teeth in a solid Straussian sound. I was not around long enough to see Jack Gilford as the drunken jailer, but a scout tells me it was Gilford in excelsis, including the filching of a whisky bottle from a tuba helpfully handed up from the orchestra pit.
Search by season: 1950-51
Search by title: Die Fledermaus,
Met careers