Ring in the New Year with Winter Harbor Music Community Opera offering 2 performances at their 4th annual New Year’s Eve Celebration, featuring Johann Strauss II’s sparkling comic opera, Die Fledermaus (The Bat) with the Downeast Chamber Orchestra. The story takes place at a Viennese New Year’s party where Dr. Falke has plotted a comical revenge. Many years earlier Gabriel von Eisenstein had abandoned Falke at a costume party, drunk in a Bat costume, to be the laughingstock of the evening. Now at the eccentric prince Orlofsky’s New Year’s party, Dr. Falke will take his revenge by orchestrating Eisenstein into similarly embarrassing situations. The action of Act II at Orlofsky’s ball will take place in the house where audience members will interact with the characters of the opera. Dress attire is encouraged but not required and attendees will be able to sing with the chorus.
Performers include Andy Boggs as Alfred, Brenna McFarland as Rosalinda, Isabel Silva as Adele, Theodore Dumas as Blind, Joshua Gurwitz as Eisenstein, Deiran Manning as Frank, Henry Horstmann as Falke, Cassandra Petrie as Orlofsky, Roland Dube as Frosch, Sonia Berghoff as Ida, and many more local artists.
The production will be directed by Winter Harbor Music Festival’s Executive Director Deiran Manning. Since the inception of the WHMF Community Opera program, Deiran has produced, directed and coached 5 operas in the region, including a fully socially distanced outdoor production of La Serva Padrona in August of 2020. His directing draws on experience working with noted directors such as Atlanta Opera Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun and noted directors Candace Evans and Garnett Bruce. His experience as a vocal coach, singer and director gives him a unique perspective into the inner workings of opera.
The Downeast Chamber Orchestra will be conducted by Michael Haigler. Mr. Haigler is a conductor of operatic, orchestral, and choral music, as well as a pianist, organist, published author and composer, and teacher. He holds a Magna cum Laude performance degree from the Eastman School of Music where he studied conducting with David Effron and Donald Hunsberger and is an alumnus of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and the International Fine Arts Institute in Moscow.
He currently serves as Music Director at Christ Church in Oyster Bay, Long Island, home to the Christ Church Festival Orchestra with which he has conducted requiems by Mozart, Fauré, Brahms, and Rutter, and symphonies such as Mendelssohn’s Italian, Beethoven’s Ninth, and Mahler’s Resurrection (complete). Mr. Haigler also holds positions as Artistic Director of the Hudson Valley Chorale, Assistant Conductor and Chorus Master at the Bronx Opera, and co-director of Pianos on the Point, a new summer workshop in Vermont.
Don’t forget to toast to the New Year, enjoy the annual paper mache lobster drop and celebrate with the performers.