[Met Performance] CID:350438



Die Fledermaus
Metropolitan Opera House, Thu, December 19, 2002

Debut : Philippe Jordan, Rosemary Joshua, Peter Coleman-Wright, Christine Abraham


In German & English



Die Fledermaus (196)
Johann Strauss II | Karl Haffner/Richard Gen?e
Rosalinde
Solveig Kringelborn

Eisenstein
Louis Otey

Adele
Rosemary Joshua [Debut]

Alfred
Paul Charles Clarke

Prince Orlofsky
Jennifer Larmore

Dr. Falke
Peter Coleman-Wright [Debut]

Dr. Blind
Bernard Fitch

Frank
John Del Carlo

Ida
Christine Abraham [Debut]

Frosch
Otto Schenk


Conductor
Philippe Jordan [Debut]


Set Designer
G?nther Schneider-Siemssen

Costume Designer
Peter J. Hall

Lighting Designer
Gil Wechsler

Choreographer
Robert La Fosse

Stage Director
Stephen Pickover





Dialogue for this production by Otto Schenk and Paul Mills
Die Fledermaus received seven performances this season.
Production photos of Die Fledermaus by Jack Vartoogian/Metropolitan Opera.

FUNDING:
Revival a gift of the Sybil B. Harrington Trust

Review 1:

Review of John W. Freeman in the April 2003 issue of OPERA NEWS

The current Met production of Strauss's "Die Fledermaus," designed by Gunther Schneider-Siemssen, was revived on December 19. Staging chores have been taken over by Stephen Pickover, leaving the original director, Otto Schenk, free to scene-steal as the jailer Frosch in Act III. The cast combined bright individual characterizations with strong ensemble, acting out some involved routines while singing with spirit. In their "Boh?me"-like buffoonery during Act I, for example, Louis Otey (replacing David Kuebler) played a rough-and-ready party animal as Eisenstein to John Del Carlo's jovial, witty Frank. In her house debut, Rosemary Joshua (Adele) sang with slender, bright tone and archly sinuous legato. Solveig Kringelborn's hearty Rosalinde navigated her music more nimbly in the tricky watch duet with Eisenstein than in the czardas that followed, with its requirement of a more faux-dramatic tone. Paul Charles Clarke, an affable Alfred, wooed her with reedy tone and pinging high notes.

In Act II, Jennifer Larmore, fabled for her masculine sound in the title role of Handel's "Giulio Cesare," brought it to the lower register of Orlofsky's lines, but neither there nor in the role's upper range did she quite reach the creamy contralto richness on which Johann Strauss's musical humor relies. Perhaps the smoothest vocalism of the evening came with the company debut of Peter Coleman-Wright as Falke, leading off the "Br?derlein and Schwesterlein" ensemble with mellow tone and velvety assurance. In Act III, an anticlimax waiting to happen, the soloists remained en garde, their repartee and tomfoolery as alert as ever. Bernard Fitch returned with his over-the-top antics as Dr. Blind, the lawyer of everyone's nightmares. Schenk, embodying a virtual history of the Viennese stage, played Frosch with simpleminded befuddlement, muttering ad libs with the same absentminded timing that was Victor Borge's trademark.

The Met continues to perform "Fledermaus" bilingually, the English dialogue jarring about in polyglot accents, the German lyrics creating musical smoothness but dramatic discontinuity. Philippe Jordan, in his Met debut, led with erratic flair, pacing the overture gracefully but episodically, without a sense of underlying rhythmic continuity. The singers too might have appreciated a less indulgent supportive pulse. The conductor seemed most secure in dance pieces allowing only limited elbow room for interpretation, such as the dashing "Thunder and Lightning" (a Schnell-Polka substituted for the Act II choral ballet) or the relaxed, lilting "landler" of "Br?derlein."



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