Live opera tonight – Croats go batty
OperaDie Fledermaus, Johann Strauss II’s comic operetta in three acts which premiered in 1874, is among the biggest hits of its genre. In only six years, the operetta was staged in more than 170 theatres in the German-speaking regions and, by the 1890s, was performed all over the world. The libretto was written by Richard Genée and Karl Haffner after the burlesque The Prison by Julius Roderich Benedix and vaudeville piece Le Révellion by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Die Fledermaus nonetheless keeps all the orchestral and vocal features of a comic opera from the time of Mozart and Rossini. Slippedisc, courtesy of OperaVision, travels to Zagreb for a live performance, as staged during the festive season in theatres around the globe. Sung in Croatian, this production is conducted by Srba Dinić and directed by Krešimir Dolenčić. Singers are Domagoj Dorotić as Gabriel von Eisenstein and Valentina Fijačko Kobić as Rosalind von Eisenstein and Filip Filipović as Alfred.
The Plot: the most brilliant of Austrian operettas takes us to the outskirts of romantic Old Vienna. It’s New Year Eve and we are in the company of Rosalinde, who is determined to teach her philandering husband Eisenstein a lesson, even while she is being pursued by her former beau, the operatic tenor Alfred. At the centre of the action is the extremely wealthy, eternally bored Prince Orlofsky, whose lavish masked ball brings everything to a most delicious boil. But what if the whole plot has been a cunning plan masterminded by someone just to get back at Eisenstein?
Subtitles in German, English and Croatian.
Live on Tuesday 9 January 2024 at 19.30 CET / 18.30 London / 13.30 NY
Correction: the Alfred was Roko Radovan.
Suggestions for Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb when supplying a feed to OperaVision: (1) list the cast, not just the conductor and stage director, in the video itself; and (2) instruct the audience to cheer audibly for the cast at curtain-call, otherwise you convey a flop.
Also, for those of us not fluent in Croatian, please provide subtitles that are visible without the use of a magnifying glass!
It was a refreshing change not to have all the business with Frosch the giaoler in act 3 which can be overdone at times Infact in this production Frosch is excised altogether
On the whole an enjoyable production
I thought the audience seemed dead though