Die Fledermaus

The 2011-2012 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues on New Year’s Eve afternoon with an archival broadcast of Johann Strauss Jr.’s lively operetta Die Fledermaus, originally broadcast on January 20, 1951. The light-hearted work, a traditional New Year’s favorite at opera companies, features an extraordinary cast led by longtime Philadelphia Orchestra music director Eugene Ormandy in his Met debut season: Patrice Munsel as Adele, Marguerite Piazza as Rosalinde, Risë Stevens as Prince Orlofsky, Richard Tucker as Alfred, John Brownlee as Dr. Falke, Charles Kullman as Eisenstein, and Oscar-nominated comic actor Jack Gilford in the speaking role of Frosch. This archival broadcast of Die Fledermaus will be heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 1 pm EST on Saturday, December 31.

 

Munsel, just 25 years old at the time of this broadcast, had a major success in the role of the ambitious maid Adele. She was already an established Met star by 1951, having made her Met debut in Thomas’s Mignon eight years earlier at the age of 18. Piazza—well-known to television audiences for her regular role on Sid Caesar’s enormously popular “Your Show of Shows” —made her Met debut in the role of Rosalinde and went on to a long career in cabaret, Broadway, and television. This season’s performances of Fledermaus were the only times Stevens and Tucker sang in the operetta in their long and acclaimed Met careers, each of which spanned four decades and included hundreds of performances. 

 

The single intermission will include “In Memoriam,” our annual tribute to Met stars who have passed away during the previous year.   Among the artists to be featured are Giorgio Tozzi, Cornell MacNeil, and Salvatore Licitra.

 

 

 

Gabriel von Eisenstein has been sentenced to eight days in prison for insulting an official, partially due to the incompetence of his attorney, Dr. Blind. Adele, Eisenstein's maid, receives a letter from her sister, who is in the company of the ballet, inviting her to Prince Orlofsky's ball. She pretends the letter says that her aunt is very sick, and asks for a leave of absence. Falke, Eisenstein's friend, arrives to invite him to the ball. Eisenstein bids farewell to Adele and his wife Rosalinde, pretending he is going to prison, but really intending to postpone jail for one day and have fun at the ball.

 

After Eisenstein leaves, Rosalinde is visited by her lover, the singing teacher Alfred, who serenades her. Frank, the governor of the prison, arrives to take Eisenstein to jail, and finds Alfred instead. In order not to compromise Rosalinde, Alfred agrees to pretend to be Eisenstein and to accompany Frank.

 

Falke, with Prince Orlofsky's permission, is orchestrating the ball as a way of getting revenge on Eisenstein. The previous winter, Eisenstein had abandoned a drunken Falke dressed as a bat (and thus explaining the opera's title) in the center of town, exposing him to ridicule the next day. As part of his scheme, Falke has invited Frank, Adele, and Rosalinde to the ball as well. Rosalinde pretends to be a Hungarian countess, Eisenstein goes by the name "Marquis Renard," Frank is "Chevalier Chagrin," and Adele pretends she is an actress.

 

The ball is in progress, and the Prince welcomes his guests. Eisenstein is introduced to Adele, but is confused as to who she really is because of her striking resemblance to his maid. 

 

Falke introduces the disguised Rosalinde to Eisenstein. During an amorous tête-à-tête, she succeeds in extracting a valuable watch from her husband's pocket, something which she can use in the future as evidence of his impropriety.  In a rousing finale, the company celebrates.

 

The next morning they all find themselves at the prison where the confusion increases and is compounded by the jailer, Frosch, who has profited by the absence of the prison director to become gloriously drunk.

Adele arrives to obtain the assistance of the Chevalier Chagrin, while Alfred wants nothing more than to get out of jail. Knowing of Eisenstein's trickery, Rosalinde wants to begin an action for divorce, and Frank is still intoxicated.

 

Frosch locks up Adele and her sister Ida, and the height of the tumult arrives when Falke appears with all the guests of the ball and declares the whole thing is an act of vengeance for the "Fledermaus". Everything is amicably arranged (with Eisenstein blaming the intoxicating effects of champagne for his act of infidelity and Orlofsky volunteering to support Adele's artistic career), but Eisenstein is compelled to serve his full term in jail.