Champagne and high spirits bubble over in Johann Strauss' comic operetta, "Die
Fledermaus," to be performed by the Yale Opera at 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 13 and 14, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 15, at the Shubert Performing Arts Center,
247 College St. The production will feature internationally known actor and musician Theodore Bikel in a non-singing role.
The story is a tangled tale of mistaken identity, romantic intrigue, masquerade, flirtation and mischief. Set in Vienna in the 1870s, the plot revolves around an elaborate joke staged by Dr. Falke. Sometime before the play begins, Falke had been made to walk home in broad daylight dressed as a bat (fledermaus) by his friend Gabriel von Eisenstein. To get his revenge, Falke contrives several ways for Eisenstein to embarrass himself at Prince Orlovsky's party. Among other things, Eisenstein courts his own housemaid in disguise and then turns his charms on a lovely stranger -- his own wife masquerading as a Hungarian countess. When Eisenstein upbraids his wife the next morning for having a tryst with an opera singer, she proves to him that he is as much at fault as she. In the finale, everyone agrees to blame their indiscretions on the abundant champagne at Orlovsky's house, and all are reconciled.
The overture and the waltz in "Die Fledermaus" are among the most popular pieces in the classical music repertoire. "Since its birth, it has been the operetta by which all others were gauged," says Doris Yarick Cross, artistic director of the Yale Opera. When Strauss wrote "Die Fledermaus" in 1873, "the waltz king" was 40 years old
and already internationally famous as the musical director of court balls and conductor of a popular orchestra. French operetta composer Jacques Offenbach encouraged Strauss to write operettas, and his suggestion became a refrain for theater directors and music publishers, who wished to profit from the venture. Despite his assertion that he had no "theatrical blood" in his veins, Strauss took time off from his concert schedule to create "Die Fledermaus." The work "remains in the repertoire of all the major opera houses of the world," says Cross.
"Die Fledermaus" is directed by Robert Tannenbaum, who was, until recently,
the youngest and only American general director and chief executive officer of a
German state theater. Lawrence Leighton Smith, professor of music, will conduct the Philharmonia Orchestra. Performing the opera are graduate students in the opera program at the School of Music, including Joanna Mongiardo, Bonnie Pepper, Kirsten Dickerson, Julianne Borg, Teresa Buchholz, Barbara LeMay, Monica Krajewska, Pablo Veguilla, Ryan MacPherson, Robert Gardner, Galen Bower, Mark Calvert, Patrick Carfizzi and James Creswell.
The chorus includes Yale College students who were chosen by competitive audition. The opera will be sung in German with English supertitles.
The role of Frosch, the drunken jailer, will be played by Theodore Bikel, who is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof." He won acclaim in London for his role as the Russian colonel in Peter Ustinov's "The Love of Four Colonels." He created the role of Baron von Trapp in the original Broadway production of "The Sound of Music" and also appeared in the Broadway productions "The Rope Dancers" and "The Lark."
Bikel's film career spans five decades, from "The African Queen," "The Defiant Ones" and "The Blue Angel" in the 1950s, to "Benefit of the Doubt" and "Shadow Conspiracy" in the 1990s. He has starred in many television dramas in the United States, Canada and England, and won an Emmy
in 1988 for his portrayal of an immigrant pioneer. A guitarist and folk singer who maintains an active concert schedule, Bickel is the author of radio and television scripts, a nonfiction reference work titled "Folksongs and Footnotes" and an autobiography titled "Theo," as well as articles for many periodicals.
Tickets for "Die Fledermaus" are $32, $27, $22 and $16 and may be purchased at the Shubert Box Office or through Advantix at 1-800-228-6622. Group rates and student discounts are available.