Work is well under way on the first full opera to be performed in Whangarei, showcasing local talent.
The funny, frolicking Die Fledermaus will star New Zealand's own light opera diva Helen Medlyn, with Opera North notables Emma Couper, Luke Bird and Gayle Dowsett, among others.
Die Fledermaus is about as lightweight as an operetta can be but it is a masterpiece of sheer farce and divine music.
Composed by Johann Strauss II in 1874, as the famous soap-operaesque quote goes, "during 42 non-stop nights of veritable rapture", Die Fledermaus (The Bat) is the younger Strauss's most celebrated operetta. The music has been described as "intoxicatingly melodious and exuberant".
The libretto, or script, by Richard Genée and Carl Haffner is a melodramatic feast of mistaken identities, flirtations at a masked ball, elegant frivolities and confusions of all kinds.
A chap called Eisenstein has been sentenced to jail for offending an official but nips off to Prince Orlofsky's ball with his mate Falke before his prison term starts.
Meanwhile, his wife Rosalinde's old flame, the singing teacher Alfred, turns up to, um, serenade her, just as the governor of the prison arrives to take Eisenstein to jail. For the sake of Rosalinde's honour, Alfred pretends he is Eisenstein and is imprisoned, while the fickle Rosalinde goes off to the ball disguised as a Hungarian princess. Their maid Adele, who wants to be an actress, has also been invited to the ball by her sister Ida.
In Act II at the ball, Eisenstein notices Adele's striking resemblance to his maid, but somehow he doesn't recognise the "Hungarian princess" who sets out to seduce him. She sneakily pockets his watch as later evidence of his philandering ways.
Act III is set in prison in the wee small hours after the ball where the confusion is compounded when, among a raft of accidental meetings and lockings-up, Eisenstein arrives to begin his sentence. He is surprised to learn his cell is occupied by a man who had been found supping romantically with Rosalinde. And what is the maid doing also locked in a cell after a delicious moment with a drunk prison official?
Then Rosalinde arrives to free Alfred and press divorce charges against her errant husband, whereupon a marital stoush breaks out with each accusing the other of promiscuity.
The tumult is complete when Falke appears with all the guests from the ball and declares the whole thing has been orchestrated as an act of vengeance for the "Fledermaus" incident. Eisenstein had once abandoned a drunken Falke, dressed as a bat (Die Fledermaus means bat), in the centre of town where he was then subjected to much ridicule.
Everything ends amicably - with Eisenstein blaming the champagne for his infidelity and Adele attracting the sponsorship of the prince in her acting career. The whole farcical show ends to the rousing finale, "Oh bat, oh bat, at last let thy victim escape".
Modern soap operas, eat your heart out!
Die Fledermaus will be performed at Forum North in November, directed by Grant Smith with musical direction by Joan Kennaway QSM, and produced by Sweetpea Productions. Other Northland Opera cast members are Tony Clemow, Tracey Barnier-Willis and James Mulligan-Hill.