Review: Die Fledermaus

Tamara Wilson (Photo: Michael Cooper)

A Party Worth the Hangover
by Shannon Christy

According to T.S. Elliott, "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." The COC’s production of Die Fledermaus takes us on a just such an exploration but it is with King Champagne, a smile and one hell of a hangover. 

To put on the world’s most popular operetta and do it in a way that still produces a genuine laugh and catchy innovations is a real accomplishment. Director Christopher Alden has done a marvelous job at bringing out the emotions from the actors and the levity from the situation. Michael Schade is captivating as Gabriel Von Eisenstein. He appears through all three acts as a rotund man-child who drives the action forward either plotting, mourning, or trying to escape the results of his actions. The other heroine is his wife Rosalinde, Tamara Wilson, whose touching aria about her recently departed husband and his empty coffee cup would be convincing if her lover Alfred, played by David Pomeroy, did not keep poking in and out of the scene. These are but two examples of an ensemble of brilliant performances whose success rest on the shoulders of their direction.