Die Fledermaus
Intoxicating social satire
To mark the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss's birth, the Hanns Eisler School of Music will be devoting its first production in the fall of 2025 to the genre of operetta. As part of its major annual production, it will perform Strauss's most famous and successful work: "Die Fledermaus," the showcase of the golden era of operetta from 1874. The production will feature a double cast of outstanding vocal and instrumental students. Over 60 students, including a choir, will participate in the staged and musical performance. Franz Wittenbrink's version (1992), with its reduced ensemble of nine instrumentalists, provides musical input for the vocal students. Featuring a piano, string quartet, flute, clarinet, harmonium, and percussion, Wittenbrink's chamber music arrangement, without brass instruments, develops a soundscape of morbid beauty.
"Happy is he who forgets what cannot be changed!"
In the period following the Vienna stock market crash and the gigantic World Exhibition in the Vienna Prater 1873, which made heavy losses, Johann Strauss used these circumstances as the starting point for his bitter social critique. In a celebration of falsehood and unbridled consumerism, he exposed Viennese society in all its hypocrisy and hedonism. In the Hanns Eisler school's 75th anniversary year, in which Berlin's cultural and academic landscape is facing very difficult economic times, the production at the Eisler will also establish a connection to the present and history. Professor Claus Unzen is staging the operetta to mark the conclusion of his decades of work here, where he has shaped conducting training since the 1990s. Peter Meiser will be the musical director. Last but not least, the "Frosch" (Frog): Look forward to a role debut by our singing professor Christine Sch?fer.
Six performances will take place in the school's Studio Hall, with an A and B premiere on October 17 and 18, and four subsequent performances. A thematic introduction will also be offered in the Chamber Music Hall I one hour before the first and final performances on October 17 and 25. The evening of Johann Strauss's 200th birthday on October 25 will be a very special performance concluding this series.
The operetta will be performed in german.
Media partner: rbb radio3
With the kind support of Stiftung am Grunewald and Deutsche Oper Berlin
In cooperation with BSP Business & Law School Berlin
In an orchestral arrangement by Franz Wittenbrink
adapted for small orchestra (9 musicians)
Felix Bloch Erben, Verlag f¨¹r B¨¹hne, Film und Funk