Reviews 2004
Reviews 2004
✭✭✭✭✩
by Johann Strauss, Jr.,
directed by Guillermo Silva-Marin
Toronto Operetta Theatre, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto
April 23-May 2, 2004
"A Bat That Really Soars"
The Toronto Operetta Theatre capped an excellent season with a fine production of that pinnacle of Golden Age Viennese operetta, Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss, Jr. This revival of the TOT’s imaginative updating of the story to the 1960s was even more successful than when last mounted in 1999.
The 1960s is a good period for Die Fledermaus. The period suggests the ideas of glamour and strict social conventions and well as sexual freedoms roiling beneath the surface. With so many present-day CEOs going to prison for bilking investors, the plot concerning the well-to-do businessman Gabriel Eisenstein who has to spend his time in jail gains a relevance it usually lacks.
TOT Artistic Director and stage director of the piece, Guillermo Silva-Marin has assembled a very fine cast. Soprano Laura Whalen was superb as Rosalinda, unafraid to give her an air of hauteur that immediately made us sympathize with her put-upon maid Adele. She found comedy in the very brazenness of a woman who swears love to her husband while planning a week-long fling with the operatic tenor Alfred. Whalen combined her fine comic acting with a gorgeous voice that galvanized the audience. Her full, rounded tone never lost its beauty even in the highest notes. Her thrilling “Csárdás” in the party scene of Act 2 was a show-stopper if there ever was one performed with dazzling panache.
As self-regarding Alfred, tenor Mark DuBois in fine voice made a welcome return to the TOT. The role allowed him to indulge in excerpts from the greatest hits of Italian opera, especially La Traviata, that particularly enflame Rosalinda’s passion. Tenor Ross Neill, playing Rosalinda’s husband, has a large, powerful voice that was not always sufficiently agile for the rapid musical interchanges. As Adele, soprano Elizabeth Beeler proved again what a natural comedienne she is. She gave a delightful performance of “Mein Herr Marquis” in Act 2 but seemed to have lost some of her ebullience by the time of her big audition scene in Act 3. Better than anyone she had the ability to make the score’s frequent musical ha-ha-has of laughter seem perfectly natural.
Alexander Dobson as Dr. Falke, the Bat of the title, is a fine actor and has a full, rich baritone shown to great advantage in “Brüderlein und Schwesterlein” in Act 2, a rare reflective moment that gave the manic actions of the party a sense of depth. Keith Savage, rigid and staring, was a comically affected Prince Orlovsky that obliterated the odd tradition of casting this role for a woman. As Frosch the jailer, Silva-Marin, almost unrecognizable as white-socked, square-glassed nerd, was truly hilarious.
Silva-Marin directed with great attention to detail throughout, but his conception of Act 3 really made this production stand out. Usually, the first part of the jail scene is set aside for a non-singing comedian doing a comic routine about the tedium of his chores. Such a long spoken section that brings the music to a dead stop has always made this act my least favourite part of the operetta. Silva-Marin, however, has had the brilliant idea of making Frosch a would-be singer who fawningly admires the tenor Alfred (mistakenly imprisoned as Eisenstein). This idea keeps the music going as Alfred teaches the geeky Frosch how to sing culminating in a priceless impersonation of what might be called “The Two Tenors” complete with handkerchiefs.
Silva-Marin has also eliminated the intermission between Act 2 and 3 and used the entr’acte supplemented by a lively playing of Strauss’s “Tritsch-Tratsch” polka for the chorus to change the set under Falke’s supervision. Since Falke is the primum mobile of the action, this scene change subtly reinforced the metatheatrical nature of the whole work.
Conductor Derek Bate led the 15-member orchestra in a lively account of this score of wall-to-wall hits. They played like a first-rate salon orchestra with a mastery of speed changes that gives Viennese music its swing. Though Die Fledermaus is one of the pillars of the operetta repertoire, this joyous production made is shine like new.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Elizabeth Beeler and Keith Savage. ©2004 Gilberto Prioste.
2004-05-09
Die Fledermaus