The operetta, among the best known of its genre, is scheduled for 28 December at the Auditorio de Tenerife with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre.

 

This year’s programming of the Auditorio de Tenerife will draw to a close with the beloved operetta Die Fledermaus (The Flittermouse) by Johann Strauss, a Christmas classic in Austrian and German musical theatre. The performance will kick off the 41st Canaries International Music Festival (FIMC), the result of an unprecedented coproduction agreement between the Auditorio de Tenerife and the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus. The event will bring together in both cities one of the best-known operettas in concert format, the prestigious French conductor Marc Minkowski and the orchestra Les Musiciens du Louvre, along with the Tenerife Opera Choir and a selection of the best singers of this genre.

The concerts are scheduled for 28 December at the Auditorio de Tenerife and 30 December at the Auditorio Alfredo Kraus in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a few days before the festival FIMC, which is to see the performance of over 60 concerts throughout the archipelago.

Cristóbal de la Rosa, the General Director of Cultural Innovation and Creative Industries, Jorge Perdigón, the Director of the Canaries International Music Festival, José Luis Rivero, the Artistic Director of the Auditorio de Tenerife, and Tilman Kuttenkeuler, the General Director of the foundation 'Fundación Auditorio y Teatro' of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, are to attend the presentation.

Kuttenkeuler expressed his satisfaction regarding the auditorium’s programming of ‘The Flittermouse’: ‘This will be our first coproduction with Auditorio de Tenerife. We hope the interpretation of this operetta will become a Christmas classic in Tenerife as it is in southern Germany and Austria’. Perdigón stated that the performance will coincide with the 150th anniversary of its premiere in Vienna in 1874, adding, ‘The Flittermouse is the 16th most frequently interpreted opera worldwide’.

Rivero noted that this will be the second time the work has been interpreted at the Auditorio de Tenerife. He went on to point out the significance of the participation of Canarian artists and the 40-member Tenerife Choir’s accompaniment of the orchestra. De la Rosa explained that regional authorities intend ‘to begin with these two emblematic venues and continue elsewhere in the islands to reach a broader public’.

Refined humour, irony, and musical elegance.

The work’s premiere in 1874 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna met with the lukewarm reaction of an audience that did not fully appreciate its refined humour, irony, informality and musical elegance. However, subsequent interpretations in Berlin marked the beginning of its great success and popularity.

The libretto is replete with romantic comedy, identities assumed at a fancy-dress party and an unforgettable ball. These elements, along with the work’s unbridled optimism, have made Die Fledermaus a theatrical Christmas classic, especially in Austria and Germany. The auditoriums of Tenerife and Gran Canaria now partake in this Central European tradition with their programming of the operetta of Johann Strauss, scheduled days before the commencement of the bicentennial of the birth of The Waltz King.

The story has all the ingredients of the best romantic comedies: infidelities, costumes that conceal identities, characters in the guise of others, and even a pending prison sentence faced by the main character Eisenstein, a trickster who becomes the unwitting victim of one of his practical jokes. Rosalinde and her husband hide the truth, while the maid and aspiring singer Adele is revealed as the key role in a story abounding in theatre artists, aristocrats, public servants and ex-lovers who conceal their identities.

The gaiety and frivolity of this Viennese operetta are underpinned by a score of immense musicality and vocal complexity that put it at the top of its genre.

Marc Minkovsky and Les Musiciens du Louvre

This concert version will feature the collaboration of the French maestro Marc Minkowski. The well-known conductor specialising in Baroque music, classical works and operettas will lead his orchestra Les Musiciens du Louvre, an acclaimed French ensemble based in Grenoble.

Founded in 1982 by Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre brings to life Baroque, classical and Romantic works with period instruments. For the last 40 years, the orchestra has garnered acclaim for its interpretations of Handel, Purcell, and Rameau, as well as Haydn and Mozart, and, more recently, Bach and Schubert, in addition to its performances of 19th-century French works of Berlioz, Bizet, Massenet, Offenbach.

Together with Minkowski, the French ensemble and the Tenerife choir, Huw Montague Rendall (Gabriel von Eisenstein), Iulia Maria Dan (Rosalinde), Michael Kraus (Frank), Ekaterina Chayka-Rubinstein (Prince Orlofsky), Magnus Dietrich (Alfred), Leon Košavić (Dr. Falke), Krešimir Špicer (Dr. Blind), Alina Wunderlin (Adele) and Sandrine Buendia (Ida) will be in the leading roles.

The tickets for the concert can be purchased on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office, or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327.