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Jan. 11: Die Fledermaus

Ken Howard
/
Metropolitan Opera

The 2013-14 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues with a live broadcast of Johann Strauss Jr.'s Die Fledermaus? Saturday, January 11 from noon-4 on KLRE Classical 90.5.

Director Jeremy Sams has written new lyrics for the work, which will be performed entirely in English, and Tony Award-nominated playwright Douglas Carter Beane makes his Met debut with new dialogue. Adam Fischer conducts a cast of rising opera stars and Broadway performers. Susanna Phillips and Christopher Maltman star as the unhappily married Rosalinde and Eisenstein; Jane Archibald is their feisty maid, Adele; Anthony Roth Costanzo is Prince Orlofsky; Michael Fabiano is Rosalinde’s former lover, Alfred; Paulo Szot is the bumbling Dr. Falke; and Patrick Carfizzi is the prison superintendent, Frank. Broadway stars Danny Burstein and Betsy Wolfe make their network debuts as the drunken jailer, Frosch, and Adele’s sister, Ida. Die Fledermaus will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 1:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, January 11.

Jeremy Sams, a playwright, director, translator, and composer, devised and staged the world-premiere Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island, which opened at the Met on New Year’s Eve 2012. His Broadway credits as a director include a revival of Michael Frayn’s farce Noises Off and the Jason Robert Brown musical 13. He received a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical for his English adaptation of Amour, a Michel Legrand musical that opened on Broadway in 2002.

Douglas Carter Beane earned Tony nominations for his play The Little Dog Laughed (2006) and for the books of the musicals Xanadu (2007), Sister Act (2011), Lysistrata Jones (2011), and Cinderella (2013). His other works include The Nance, which opened on Broadway in 2013; and the off-Broadway plays Mr. & Mrs. Fitch (2010); Mondo Drama (2003); Music From a Sparkling Planet (2001); The Country Club (1999); As Bees in Honey Drown (1997); and Advice From a Caterpillar (1991).

Adam Fischer made his Met debut in 1994 conducting Verdi’s Otello. In subsequent seasons with the company, he led performances of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Verdi’s Aida, and Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. He is the music director of the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra and the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Chief Conductor of the Danish National Chamber Orchestra.

Earlier this season, soprano Susanna Phillips made an acclaimed Met role debut as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte under the baton of James Levine in his return after a two-year absence from the Met podium. Since her 2008 Met debut as Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème, she has also sung Pamina in Die Zauberflöte and Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the company. This spring, she will reprise her performances as Musetta and Fiordiligi, both of which will be broadcast over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio.

Baritone Christopher Maltman’s previous roles at the Met are Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos (the role of his 2005 debut), Silvio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte. His other engagements this season include the title role in Don Giovanni at the Berlin State Opera and, at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, both the Count in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Lescaut in a new production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut.

Soprano Jane Archibald made her Met debut in 2010 as Ophélie in a new production of Thomas’s Hamlet. Her other performances this season include Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos at the Bavarian State Opera and Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and Olympia in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at Zurich Opera.

Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo made his Met debut in 2011 as Unulfo in Handel’s Rodelinda. Later that season, he originated the role of Ferdinand in The Enchanted Island and also sang some performances as Prospero, filling in for an ailing colleague. Later this season, he will reprise his Ferdinand in the Met's revival of The Enchanted Island and sing Eustazio in Handel’s Rinaldo at Glyndebourne.

Tenor Michael Fabiano first came to prominence as a winner of the Met’s 2007 National Council Auditions, which were documented in the film The Audition. He made his company debut in 2010 as Raffaele in Verdi’s Stiffelio and returned last season to sing Cassio in Otello. His other performances this season include Rodolfo in La Bohème at Canadian Opera Company, the Verdi Requiem at San Francisco Opera, and the title role in Gounod’s Faust at Netherlands Opera.

Baritone Paulo Szot made his Met debut in 2010 as Kovalyov in the company premiere of Shostakovich’s The Nose, a role he reprised this season. He has also sung Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen and Lescaut in the 2012 new production premiere of Massenet’s Manon with the company. He won a 2008 Tony Award for his performance in South Pacific on Broadway.

Patrick Carfizzi has sung more than 250 Met performances in 29 roles. His most recent appearances with the company include Peter Quince in this season’s revival of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Jailer in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, and Schaunard in La Bohème.

Danny Burstein has appeared in 14 Broadway productions, earning Tony nominations for his performances as Aldolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone, Luther Billis in South Pacific, Buddy in Follies, and Tokio in Golden Boy. This season, he stars on Broadway as Max Hohmann in Sharr White’s The Snow Geese (Manhattan Theater Club) and plays Herr Schultz in the Roundabout Theater Company’s forthcoming revival of Cabaret.

The intermissions will include backstage interviews with the stars and the popular Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Quiz, featuring tenor Bryan Hymel. He sings the role of Pinkerton in the Met’s production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly for five performances from January 16.