Die Fledermaus

Opera San José Presents Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus SAN JOSE, CA (August 28, 2019) – On September 14th Opera San José opens the 2019-2020 season with Die Fledermaus. We kick off the season on September 14, 2019 when we open Die Fledermaus. Michael Morgan, music director of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek will make his Opera San José debut conducting Johann Strauss’ most seductive series of waltzes and polkas, effervescent arias and dizzying, sentimental ensembles. We will have particularly brilliant sets and costumes, and Marc Jacobs will return to direct this production, which was highly appreciated in 2012. Fledermaus is a double dose of good cheer, thanks to the sparkle of excellent champagne and a vintage, masterful operetta. This production from Opera San José is funded in part by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San José. Die Fledermaus will be sung in German with English dialogue and English supertitles. Runtime is approximately three hours. Opera San José presents six performances of this opera, opening in San José’s California Theatre on September 14, 2019, closing September 29, 2019. The California Theatre is at 345 S. First Street in downtown San José. Dates: Performances: September 14, 15m, 19, 22m, 27, and September 29m. Time: “m” indicates matinee at 3PM; all other performances are at 8PM Location: California Theatre, 345 South 1st Street (between San Carlos and San Salvador), San José, CA Tickets: Tickets are available by calling (408) 437-4450, online at OPERASJ.ORG, and at the Opera San José Box Office at 2149 Paragon Drive in San José. Prices range from $10 for students ages 25 and younger with a current student ID. Tickets are $55, $75, $95, $115, $145, $179, and $185 for adults. Die Fledermaus Preview: September 3, 2019 from 12 – 1 p.m., California Theatre, 345 S. First Street in downtown San José; Please use the Market Street entrance; Free vocal preview with members of the cast. For information, call 408-437-4450. Introduction to Opera: General Director Larry Hancock will present a free 45-minute talk to ticket holders about the opera at the California Theatre before each performance of Die Fledermaus. The talk begins at 6:30pm prior to evening performances and at 1:30pm prior to Sunday matinees. No reservations required. Press Room: www.operasj.org/news-events/press-room To learn more about Die Fledermaus, please visit OPERASJ.ORG Performances supported, in part, by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San José. Die Fledermaus CAST BIOGRAPHIES Michael Morgan makes his OSJ debut on the podium in the 2019-20 season, conducting performances of Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. Maestro Morgan was born in Washington, DC, where he attended public schools and began conducting at the age of 12. While a student at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, he spent a summer at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, studying with Gunther Schuller and Seiji Ozawa. He ﬁrst worked with Leonard Bernstein during that same summer. His operatic debut was in 1982 at the Vienna State Opera, conducting Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio. In 1986, Sir Georg Solti chose him to become the Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for seven years under both Solti and Daniel Barenboim. In 1986, he was invited by Leonard Bernstein to make his debut with the New York Philharmonic. As guest conductor, Morgan has appeared with most of America’s major orchestras, as well as the New York City Opera, St. Louis Opera Theater and Washington National Opera. In addition to his duties with the Oakland Symphony since 1991, Maestro Morgan serves as Artistic Director of the Oakland Symphony Youth Orchestra, Music Director at Bear Valley Music Festival, and Music Director of Gateways Music Festival. He is Music Director Emeritus of the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera, and is on the boards of Oaktown Jazz Workshops, the Purple Silk Music Education Foundation, and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. In the summer of 2018, he led a national youth orchestra of students from El Sistema programs organized by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, sharing the concert with Gustavo Dudamel. He makes many appearances in the nation’s schools each year. Christopher James Ray returns in the 2019-20 season as a member of OSJ’s resident company, serving as assistant conductor, chorus master and principal coach. As the company’s resident conductor, he will conduct two performances of each 2019-20 production, act as principal coach, and oversee chorus preparation. Mr. Ray made his OSJ debut in the 2018-19 season as assistant conductor and chorus master for Pagliacci. Recent engagements for Mr. Ray include joining the music staff of the renowned Bayreuth Festival where he worked on productions of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Götterdämmerung, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal. For the 2017-18 season, Christopher served as Interim Music Director for Opera at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis where he led performances of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte and Copland’s The Tender Land. Additional conducting credits include Handel’s Alcina at the Pennsylvania State University, Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters at Texas Christian University, Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro for Land of Enchantment Opera, and Florida State Opera’s productions of Heggie’s Three Decembers, Glass’s In the Penal Colony, Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, and Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera. In 2014, he made his professional conducting debut leading a double bill of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci with the Mississippi Opera, and later that year he conducted performances of Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi with Opera in the Ozarks. As assistant conductor, Mr. Ray has worked with New York City Opera (Brokeback Mountain), Salzburg State Theater (Brokeback Mountain), North Carolina Opera (La bohème, Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro), Sarasota Opera (Le nozze di Figaro, Don Carlos), Opera on the James (Carmen), Opera on the Avalon (Die Zauberflöte), Syracuse Opera (Die Fledermaus) as well as the Memphis and Portland (ME) Symphonies. A protege of American composer Carlisle Floyd, Christopher is a sought-after interpreter of Floyd’s works. In addition to serving as the assistant to the composer, Christopher recorded an album of Floyd’s songs with the celebrated mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer. It is available through GPR Records on the Naxos label. A native of Sumrall, Mississippi, Christopher is a graduate of Florida State University where he studied with Douglas Fisher and Carlisle Floyd. Director Marc Jacobs returns to OSJ in the 2019-20 season, directing Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. Mr. Jacobs started his opera career assisting Sir Peter Hall and legendary Broadway Director Hal Prince. He then joined the New York City Opera staging staff (Beverly Sills, Artistic Director) where he mounted productions of Puccini’s Turandot, and Knussen and Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Since then he has directed Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette for Houston Opera, Mozart’s Cosí Fan Tutte for Los Angeles Opera, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Die Fledermaus for Madison Opera, and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly for Opera San Antonio among many others. He has received the San Francisco Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Direction of a Musical (Show Boat), two “Ginny” Awards from American Musical Theatre of San Jose where he served as Associate Artistic Director, the Shelly Award for It Shoulda Been You at Center Rep, and two Meritorious Achievement Awards from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. He dedicates this production to his ever-patient husband, Steve. Baritone Eugene Brancoveanu returns during the 2019-20 season as a member of OSJ’s resident company, appearing as Eisenstein (Strauss’s Die Fledermaus), the Father (Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel), and Count De Luna (Verdi’s Il trovatore) and Papageno (Mozart’s The Magic Flute.) Roles performed for OSJ include Stubb (Heggie and Scheer’s Moby-Dick), Leporello (Mozart’s Don Giovanni), Stanley Kowalski (Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire), and Escamillo (Bizet’s Carmen.) Other recent engagements for Mr. Brancoveanu include Older Brother in Jabri’s Cities of Salt with Opera Movie NY, and serving as Director and performing the role of Pasha Selim in Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio with Livermore Opera. In Freiburg, Germany, he appeared as Falke in J. Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Darcy in Mechem’s Pride and Prejudice, and Escamillo in Carmen,and performed the title role in Don Giovanni in Warsaw, Poland. Other international performances include appearances at Heidelberg Opera, Stuttgart Opera, Salzburg Music Festival, Munich State Opera, Berlin Opera, Pesaro Teatro Rossini, Piccola Scala di Milano, Macerata teatro di opera, Romanian National Theater, Tokyo Opera House, Matsumoto Opera, Montreal Opera and Opera Theater of Tel Aviv. After his successful apprenticeship with San Francisco Opera’s Merola Program, he was awarded the position of Adler Fellow, where roles performed included Tomski in Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame, Riccardo in Rossini’s The Italian in Algiers, the title role in Don Giovanni, the Pilot in Portman’s The Little Prince, Belcore in Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love, Enrico in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Tarquinius in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia. Other career highlights include receiving the Tony Award for his role of Marcello in Puccini’s La bohème, and his performance in the title role of Shostakovich’s Orango with the Los Angeles Symphony under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellers, which was recorded for Deutsche Gramaphon.

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