Die Fledermaus: The Bat Swings Wildly

All serious writers who review Die Fledermaus make bad puns and comparisons: Johan Strauss ' operetta, which contains a few songs to "King Champagne," is like champagne, it is fizzy and bubbly and sparkly and easy to ingest and you come out inebriated. It also contains an aria called "Chacun à son gout," French for to each his own taste. Gosh, what a hook for a reviewer to hang his coat. Some will like it, some might not, chacun à son gout!

But we at SFist can go where they can't, with their layers of editors and fear of sanctimonious letter writers: die Fledermaus means "the bat," a somewhat nonsensical title, but then again, the whole story does not make much sense anyway. But the cast at Saturday's performance at the War Memorial opera house just ~~went bats**t crazy~~ swung that bat like they were on 'roids. Hey, it's an all sails out fun piece, it's not subtle, so why should we be? And by crazy, we mean: jumping up and down, and running around, and tripping themselves up, and leaving no slapstick stone unturned. They did all they could to make us forget that they really were legitimate opera singers, you know, the supposedly staid kind who move like a brick and one would expect to sing like we shoot hoops: with their feet solidly on the ground.

Pictures by SF Opera/Terrence McCarthy. Above, Gerald Thompson went full throttle, so that we were sure he would toss that vodka glass over his shoulder. Below, from left to right, Melody Moore as Ida, Christine Goerke, Wolfgang Brendel, Brian Leerhuber as Falk, Eugene Brancoveanu, Jennifer Welch-Babidge

Christine Goerke, a full sized diva, packs the extra burden of being four months pregnant. Maybe the added pouch helps her project her voice, as she sounded vibrant. Yet, she was climbing up and down the stairs and running around the stage as Rosalinde. Consider Eugene Brancoveanu, a baritone who plays Frank, the prison warden. He has a non-singing interlude during which he jumps over a bench a few times, cracks his balls on a railing, rolls on the floor then climbs a pole like a stripper at Broadway Showgirls. It does help he is a second year Adler fellow, which means he is still young, even he's grimed to look middle aged.

Rosalinde's husband, Eisenstein, is sung by baritone Wolfgang Brendel, who turns sixty next year, yet acts on stage like a man half his age. He is petulant, impetuous, cynical and immature, a perfect rendition of the character. He is supposed to present himself to jail to serve an eight days term of insubordination, but wants to squeeze in a little Cinderella visit to the ball of prince Orlofsky before midnight, unbeknownst from Rosalinde. He hopes to have some fun with ladies of the ballet as a morale booster before going to jail. Brendel literally has some fun on the stage, and is more focused on the comedic aspects than strict accuracy, for instance singing "what a beautiful shower" instead of "what a beautiful flower" to his love interest, a Hungarian countess who is actually is wife in disguise.

Prince Orlofsky is another role played all the way out there in zaniness. Counter-tenor Gerald Thompson, an Adler Fellow as well, enters the stage led by Sir and Ser, two award winning borzoi greyhounds, fakes the Russian accent and sings with surprising strength in the high registers, high in soprano territory. Quite often, his role is played by a woman in pants, but it would be hard to find one to rival Thompson: he brings a forceful yet jaded presence to Orlofsky.

Adele, Rosalinde's chambermaid, who wants to sing her way up to becoming an actress, is played with street-wise guile and common sense by soprano Jennifer Welch-Babidge. Her main tune is Adele's laughing song, where, at the ball, she mocks her boss, who is disguised as Marquis Renard, for confusing her with a chambermaid: she's an actress, she has much more to offer. This, Orlofsky's Chacun à son gout, the toast to champagne, all the showpiece numbers were executed very convincingly.

Donald Runnicles led the waltzy proceedings, getting the most out of the orchestra, and never relenting with the pace: the fun over the stage was fueled in the pit by a music you wanted to sing along or dance to. The instrumental numbers, the overture and the delightfully danced pas de deux for instance, displayed joyfulness, but also a textured thoughtfulness: this was a fun score which was taken seriously.

The only quibble we would have would be with the length of the spoken words. It is an operetta, with dialogues spoken in plain English. But, unlike most of the audience who seemed to enjoy the numerous wisecracks, we were waiting for the next song to begin during these dialogues. Frosh, the prison guard, begins the 3rd act with a comedy routine, making jokes about the set, Martha Stewart, or the super-titles. They were funny jokes all right, and the cast was amazingly comfortable delivering them -- so much for the opera actors can't act theory -- but we could have done with less stand-up speechifying, and more plain singing.

Oh, talking about which: the super-titles crisis has ended! Mediated by director David Gockley, a compromise was found to peacefully evacuate the super-title screens from the sides of the stage, replaced by four little screens under the balcony for those seating in the back of the orchestra, and the one screen above the stage which came back already last summer. Peace, at last.

Remaining performances: Tue. September 12, 8 pm, September 14, 7:30 pm, Sat. September 16, 8 pm, Wed. October 4, 7:30 pm, Sun. October 8, 2 pm, Fri. October 13, 8 pm
Opera box office: 864-3330