Die Fledermaus on DVD
by Corliss Phillabaum
MY TOP RECOMMENDATIONS
Three Productions staged by Otto Schenk
C. Kleiber: Coburn, Wächter, Perry, Hopferwieser, Brendel, Fassbaender (Schenk, Bavarian State Opera, 1987) (DG)
In its staging, this third version of director Otto Schenk’s popular production on DVD occupies a middle ground. His 1972 production was made for television in an intimate performance geared to the small home screens of that time. The 1980 version was a broadly comic and festive live performance filmed on New Year’s Eve at the Vienna State Opera with a particularly star-studded cast. This live 1987 production from Munich shares many elements of the 1980 staging but is played less broadly, even though several of the singers also appeared in the Vienna cast. Musically it is highly distinctive under the revelatory musical direction of that unique conductor, Carlos Kleiber. Under Kleiber the musical brilliance of the score gets its full due, rather than staying somewhat in the background as in Schenk’s earlier stagings. This brilliance applies not just to the orchestra, but also to the work of the singers, whose contribution is not only full of personality but also expressed with a remarkable clarity and precision, which is supported by a richly expressive orchestra. Kleiber is totally in tune with orchestra and soloists alike, and even in ensembles that are taken at a breathtakingly fast tempo every word is crystal clear and musically precise. Even in comparison with the best of the rival versions on DVD, this Munich version has a freshness and clarity comparable to a beautifully restored painting.
Günther Schneider-Siemssen designed the settings in all three productions. In Munich they are similar in plan to the version but somewhat more intimate and down-to-earth. Much of the stage business replicates the Vienna version, such as Adele’s expressive feather duster and the involvement of the entire cast in the major dance scene of Act Two, but there is less over-the-top physical comedy and a more specific sense of human plausibility to the action.
The two principal female roles are cast with American sopranos, Pamela Coburn as Rosalinde and Janet Perry as Adele, who sing beautifully and handle the extensive German dialogue remarkably idiomatically. (As usual in a Schenk production, the singers play the dialogue with wonderfully spontaneity.) The remainder of the cast is Austrian and German including several singers also seen in Schenk’s Vienna staging, including Josef Hopferwieser as Alfred, Eberhard Wächter as Eisenstein, Brigitte Fassbaender as a vivid Prince Orlofsky, and Wolfgang Brendel as a warm-voiced and dashing Dr. Falke.
All three Schenk-staged DVD’s are thoroughly delightful, but if forced to choose, my favorite would have to be this Munich production which combines brilliant theatre with an unforgettable presentation of Strauss’ music. A true classic!
Böhm: Janowitz, Wächter, Holm, Kmentt, Kunz, Windgassen (Schenk, 1972) (TV film, DG)
The Viennese actor/director/cabaret artist Otto Schenk is truly the grand old man of Viennese theatre. In his long career he has combined regular stage appearances with a international directing career of both plays and operas. His home base is his native Vienna, but his operatic productions have ranged far and wide, including many at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where his stagings of Wagner operas have remained in the repertory for decades. As of the writing of this review, he is once again starring in a play in Vienna at the age of 85. Of the eleven productions of Die Fledermaus included in this survey of DVD’s, he has directed three, including this TV film produced in Vienna in 1972. (He also appears in several productions, either as the jail-keeper Frosch or as Prison Director Frank.)
This brilliant film essentially sets the standard for a genuinely Viennese interpretation of Strauss’ operetta. With its authentic period settings, beautiful and tasteful period costumes, and its warmly comic style it is a true classic of Viennese theatre. Musically the production is conducted by Austrian-born Karl Böhm, who provides plenty of Viennese lilt to the score as well as driving vitality. Last, and by no means least, the cast includes a number of legendary Viennese performers such as Erich Kunz, Eberhard Wächter, Renate Holm, Waldemar Kmentt and Schenk himself as the tipsy jailer, Frosch.
The musical score here was prerecorded and the singers lip-synched their own voices (remarkably well), while the spoken dialogue was recorded during the actual filming. The dialogue was very effectively adapted (and spiced up) by Schenk and Peter Weiser, and under Schenk’s witty direction, the wonderfully spontaneous acting matches the high quality of the singing. The one unusual piece of casting is the 58 year-old German Heldentenor, Wolfgang Windgassen, in what is usually a breeches part, the bored Russian Prince Orlofsky. His languid, overweight Prince is a highlight of the production. The DVD remastering is very successful, both sound and picture, and excellent subtitles make it readily accessible to non-speakers of German. Highly recommended!
Guschlbauer: Popp, Weikl, Gruberova, Hopferwieser, Berry, Fassbaender (Schenk, Vienna State Opera, 1980) (TDK)
In contrast with Otto Schenk’s intimate 1972 film production, this live performance at the Vienna State Opera is a broadly played New Year’s Eve blast in the composer’s home town, superbly sung by a stellar cast, warmly played by the Vienna State Opera orchestra, and a feast for the eyes in richly detailed settings by Günther Schneider-Siemssen and stunningly beautiful costumes by Milena Canonera. The energy level is high and the shared festive spirit of performers and audience is irresistible. Lucia Popp and Bernd Weikl play the dysfunctional married couple, Rosalinde and Eisenstein with almost manic energy and sing gloriously, while Edita Gruberova as Adele is the chambermaid from Heaven and Hell, all in one, while providing coloratura brilliance to her music. The roles of Prison Director Frank and Jailer Frosch are in the richly comic Viennese hands of Erich Kunz and Helmut Lohner, while the super-cool Prince Orlofsky is vividly presented by Brigitte Fassbaender. The ensemble scenes at the ball are particularly brilliantly staged, with all of the soloists, chorus members and dancers totally participating in every number. The production may be a bit over the top for some tastes, but if you are willing to give in to the festive mood, it can be a real party experience, even if you don’t bring your own champagne! The essential subtitles are included. Recommended.
RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS
Two from England in English (more or less)
A Wild New Year’s Eve
Domingo: Te Kanawa, Prey, Heichele, O’Neill, Soffel (Lindtberg/Gregson, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1984) (Kultur)
This New Year’s Eve performance is a rather bloated hodgepodge of a show, running some three hours in a mishmash of languages that at times is highly entertaining as it lumbers along. The singers are generally excellent, particularly Kiri Te Kanawa’s vocally and visually stunning Rosalinde and Hildegard Heichele’s refreshingly earthy Adele. Dennis O’Neill milks the opera-quoting Alfred for plenty of laughs as well as singing beautifully. The cast is generally strong, though Hermann Prey’s Eisenstein is frequently rather phlegmatic and only occasionally comes to life, especially when he is impersonating the stuttering lawyer, Dr. Blind. (The stuttering shtick seems rather tasteless nowadays.) The special guests at Orlofsky’s ball range from Prey singing a number from Strauss’ Gypsy Baron (including a brief juggling act) through a popular British drag act and ending with a stunning ballet sequence featuring Merle Park and Wayne Eagling, choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton. Most of the sung text is in German but the dialogue jumbles German, English, French and snatches of other languages, vaguely motivated but rather distracting, and a number of unnecessary clarifying scenes have been added, including the incongruous appearance of Dr. Falke at the beginning of the prison scene. Near the end of this overstuffed but often entertaining evening, there is a scene of wonderful comedy in the appearance of the great Viennese actor, Josef Meinrad, as the jail keeper Frosch. His comic bits are largely the traditional ones, but every one of them is given a surprising variation and played with classic ineptitude. A highlight comes when Frosch tries to sing a tenor aria and Domingo joins in from the podium and Frosch tearfully rejoices that he has at last sung with Placido Domingo! Visually the set and costume designs of Julia Trevelyan Oman are rather overwhelming but also a visual feast, with Prince Orlofsky’s palace suggesting the interior of the famous baroque opera house in Bayreuth (NOT Wagner’s Festspielhaus!) Recommended as a kind of guilty pleasure, probably best appreciated if you already know the real operetta.
A Tribute to Joan Sutherland (plus a Die Fledermaus)
Bonynge: Gustafson, Otey, Howarth, Bottone, Kowalski (Cox, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1990) (Arthaus Musik) Joan Sutherland’s Farewell Gala, with Sutherland, Horne and Pavarotti as performing guests in Act 2) (in English, no subtitles)
Here is another New Year’s Eve performance, this time including a celebration of Joan Sutherland’s retirement. The operetta is given entirely in English here in a witty but often unintelligible translation by John Mortimer, and there are no English subtitles. Although this time the stage director is listed as John Cox, some of the same additions are made to the spoken dialogue to clarify the plot and Falke again hovers uselessly in the background during Eisenstein’s farewells to Rosalinde. The gala entertainment is quite extensive, with an aria apiece for Pavarotti and Horne, duets for Sutherland and Pavarottti and for Sutherland and Horne, and a final farewell solo for Sutherland with Home Sweet Home. There is also the same Frederick Ashton pas de deux for Royal Ballet dancers as in 1984. (Extras on the Blu-Ray edition are scenes with Sutherland from past Australian Opera telecasts.) The comic monologue by Frosch is taken by British comedian John Sessions and is a topical monologue on British concerns. The performance of Fledermaus itself is rather overshadowed by all the extras, but it is quite well sung, with particularly good work by Nancy Gustafson as Rosalinde and a lively turn as Prince Orlofsky by countertenor Jochen Kowalski. As a Fledermaus it is not really competitive, but as a tribute to a great artist it is quite touching, and the deep affection of the audience for Dame Joan during the gala and the post-show tributes and presentations is very evident.
RECOMMENDED WITH SERIOUS RESERVATIONS
A Mixed Bag from Glyndebourne
Jurowski: Armstrong, Allehn, Lindskog, Petrova (Lawless, Glyndebourne Festival, 2003)
(Opus Arte)
There is much to enjoy in this Glyndebourne Festival production, but also some less attractive elements. Musically the performance is good hands with conductor (and Festival musical director) Vladimir Jurowski. Although tempos are somewhat broader than usual in the overture and in some numbers, they are sensitively shaped and effective. (The broader tempos may be based on the recently published critical edition of the score, which was used for the production.) A very desirable result of this practice is much greater intelligibility of the words in the up-tempo ensembles and more expressive singing from the performers. Although none of the principals is a native speaker of German, all have clearly worked very successfully on both the sung and spoken texts and all of the words come through intelligibly, if not accent-free.
Visually the production is a feast for the eyes, at least in the first two acts. The action has been move into the early years of the 20th Century and the design and color choices have been based on the paintings of Gustav Klimt and other artists of the period. The back wall of the Act One set is a stunning window of stained glass set in a metal grid, while the Act Two palace of Prince Orlofsky is a full stage metal grid-work carousel laced with stairways and platforms. It rotates frequently to establish a variety of playing spaces for scenes large and small.
Much of the stage action is well shaped by director Stephen Lawless, with the singers encouraged to play in a relatively restrained comic style with careful attention to the text. Unfortunately, Lawless has also chosen to do a complete rewrite of the spoken dialogue, making substantial additions which are intended to give more plot detail and motivation but which only serve to bloat the performance to more than two and one-half hours (plus intermissions) and add nothing at all to the original. In addition, the permanence of the rotating structure of Act Two precludes any significant change for the prison scene in Act Three the set is simply set in one spot to provide a generic background of iron bars, with only the central portion of the stage illuminated. Overall, there is an unfinished quality about this act, as if rehearsal time and/or inspiration had run out the whole action is clumsily presented.
The cast is certainly of high quality, especially the Eisenstein of Thomas Allen, who at the age of 61 sings splendidly and creates a very appealing aging roué who is trying to relive his youth. Pamela Armstrong is comparably effective as a middle-aged Rosalinde who is also trying to cling to a youthful romance. Malena Ernman is particularly successful in the breeches role of the young and jaded Prince Orlofsky.