Strauss, Die Fledermaus: San Francisco Opera, Donald Runnicles (conductor), War Memorial Opera House, 16.09.2006 (PB)

 

 

It must have a been a bittersweet evening for Donald Runnicles, San Francisco Opera’s music director since 1992. Within a day of announcing that he would not renew his current contract, he was receiving several long, standing ovations from those attending last Saturday’s performance of Die Fledermaus. This was the company’s third staging of Johann Strauss Jr.’s operetta this season, and while the conducting and orchestral performances were first rate, the principal singers turned this frothy entertainment into a memorable experience.

 

Christine Goerke, a soprano best known for her mastery of the Mozart and Gluck repertoire, made her San Francisco debut as Rosalinde. She was in robust form (made even more so by her very real pregnant condition), and it appears that she will soon be recognized for her riotous comic acting as well.

 

Wolfgang Brendel, a baritone who has played the role of Eisenstein many times before, was in some significant ways the stage leader of this production. He is a superb showman who can time the pratfalls, double-takes and broad humor this particular work requires without seeming to exert undue effort.

 

Jennifer Welch-Babidge also deserves praise for her wildly funny and unrestrained performance as the chambermaid, Adele. She made her SFO debut as Blondchen in Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio four years ago, and she now has many fans here.

 

Those seeking to find fault with the production, however, will no doubt comment on its three-and-one-half-hour length. While dancers Peter Brandenhoff and Cynthia Drayer contributed an elegant pas de deux to the Act II party scene, much of the other activity could have been eliminated.

 

Lotfi Mansouri – “Supertitle Godfather” – put this production together originally several years ago. And while it has been revived under the direction of E. Loren Meeker, it is still sung in the familiar English translation of Ruth and Thomas Martin. Why, then, are supertitles now even necessary? These are petty grievances, though, and should not diminish the pageantry and luster so evident this evening.

Wolfram Skalicki’s sets were inspired, while the costumes given to the gendarmes, grand ball revelers and sundry laborers comprising the SFO’s chorus were marvelous.

Finally, a footnote: countertenor Gerald Thompson played Prince Orlofsky with divine aplomb. “I’m so bored,” he so often repeated. Perhaps, that too, sums up Runnicle’s decision to move on.

 

 

Patrick Burnson