Barrie Kosky gives the “operetta of all operettas” a new look and devotes himself to its morbid side. The setting is Vienna, city of the golden operetta era, where Die Fledermaus premiered at the Theater an der Wien in 1874. The bat's revenge becomes a nightmare, and not just for Gabriel von Eisenstein. A society, an entire city dances towards the abyss. To take revenge on his friend Eisenstein, Dr. Falke, alias Die Fledermaus, stages a game of mistaken identity at Count Orlofsky's house. A marquis and a chevalier, a countess and budding artists meet there for a raucous party. Glasses clink, relationships are shaken, people love, lie and dance. The party lasts as long as it lasts, true to the motto: “Happy is he who forgets...”.
Soprano Diana Damrau has been performing on the world’s leading opera and concert stages for two decades. Her vast repertoire spans title roles in Anna Bolena (Opera House Zurich, Vienna State Opera), I Masnadieri (Bavarian State Opera), Roméo et Juliette (La Scala, Metropolitan Opera), Lucia di Lammermoor (La Scala, Bavarian State Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House), Manon (Vienna State Opera, Metropolitan Opera) and La Traviata (La Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Opéra National de Paris and Bavarian State Opera) as well as Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte (Metropolitan Opera, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, Bavarian State Opera). She will make her debut as Gräfin Madeleine in Capriccio at the Bavarian State Opera in July of 2022.