STAGE TUBE: Sneak Peek of DIE FLEDERMAUS at the Met Opera

A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met on December 31, with two Broadway stars appearing. Check out a preview video!

Danny Burstein and Betsy Wolfe will make their Met debuts in the production, starring as the drunken jailer, Frosch, and Adele's sister, Ida, respectively.

Jeremy Sams, writer and creator of the Met's Baroque pastiche, The Enchanted Island, makes his company debut as director with the new staging, which is set in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. Sams also contributes new lyrics for Strauss's work, which will be performed entirely in English; Tony Award-nominated playwright Douglas Carter Beane makes his Met debut with new dialogue. Adam Fischer conducts a cast of rising opera stars and Broadway performers. The cast is led by Susanna Phillips and Christopher Maltman as the unhappily married Rosalinde and Eisenstein; Jane Archibald as Rosalinde's feisty maid, Adele; Anthony Roth Costanzo as Prince Orlofsky; Michael Fabiano as Rosalinde's former lover, Alfred; Paulo Szot as the bumbling Dr. Falke; and Patrick Carfizzi as the prison superintendent, Frank.

Robert Jones is set and costume designer for the production, with lighting design by Jennifer Schriever and choreography by Stephen Mear in their Met debuts.

This will be the Met's fourth production of Die Fledermaus, which had its company premiere in 1905. Previous stagings include the 1950 production, directed by Garson Kanin and conducted by Eugene Ormandy, which was performed entirely in English as translated by Kanin and lyricist Howard Dietz. The most recent production, a 1986 staging by Otto Schenk, was sung in German with English dialogue, translated by Marcel Prawy. In the Met's 1998-99 season, the Broadway team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green provided new English dialogue and a revised storyline for the operetta, though the music was still sung in German.

The December 31 opening performance will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS XM Channel 74, as will the performances on January 11 and 15, and February 13 and 20. The December 31 and February 13 performances will also be streamed live on the Met's website, www.metopera.org.

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