Rebecca Stanley’s sumptuous costumes include the Phoenix ballgown, modeled by Courtney Kayser (front).
To see Die Fledermaus as you’ve never seen it before, you’ll want to catch Madison Savoyards’ production of the popular comic opera.
The operetta, written by Johann Strauss II, is a departure for the 55-year-old company; it will mark the first fully staged non-Gilbert and Sullivan work that the company has mounted in its history. But stage director J. Adam Shelton says the Savoyards aren’t abandoning Gilbert and Sullivan. Shelton, a board member and outgoing president of the Savoyards, says that the company needs audience to stay afloat and some G&S shows don’t garner the same audience as the “big three”: HMS Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. “Last year the company researched the possibility of offering other light opera as the mainstage event,” he says. “We thought that our emerald anniversary would be a good time to try something different.”
Fledermaus, which runs July 20-29 at UW-Madison’s Music Hall, is also the first directorship for Shelton, a lyric tenor who has performed in theaters around town and in the blockbuster opera, Dead Man Walking (Madison Opera, 2014). For a director whose heart is in comedy, Fledermaus is a perfect fit.
Composed in 1874, Die Fledermaus (The Bat) is a tale of revenge gone awry. The backstory to the opera takes place a few years before when Eisenstein and his friend Falke leave a costume party and Eisenstein abandons his drunk friend, who is dressed as a bat, in the center of town.
When the curtain rises on the first act, it’s payback time as Eisenstein (Tim Rebers) prepares to go to jail for striking a police officer, and Dr. Blind, his incompetent lawyer (Anmol Gupta), somehow manages to lengthen his sentence. Eisenstein’s wife Rosalinda (Erin Bryan) doesn’t know what she’ll do without her husband for so long, but Alfred, an ex-lover (Nick Kaplewski), and Falke (Ben Swanson) give her some ideas. Adele, the chambermaid (Michelle Buck), has lied to get the day off to attend a ball, and finally, the wrong man is taken to jail.
When it seems that things couldn’t get more confusing, the characters change their identities at Prince Orlofsky’s costume ball, with Kirsten Larson singing Orlofsky’s “trouser role” (a man’s role sung by a woman). How this topsy-turvy world ends right-side-up is best left for you to experience.
Costume designer Rebecca Stanley will channel Muppets creator Jim Henson in the ballroom segment, which will also include dancers from the Central Midwest Ballet Academy. And a 26-player orchestra, under the direction of conductor Kyle Knox, will swing Strauss’s waltzes to life.
Fledermaus will be sung in English with supertitles provided for the musical selections. There will also be references to Wisconsin in the libretto here and there, but you’ll need to pay close attention to catch them. The Bat moves swiftly.
