Die Fledermaus

Johann Strauss Statue
Johann Strauss Statue © Fred Friedrich B?hringer

To mark the 200th anniversary of Johann Strauss's birth, the Hanns Eisler School of Music will be devoting its first production in the fall of 2025 to the genre of operetta. As part of its major annual production, it will perform Strauss's most famous and successful work: "Die Fledermaus," the showcase of the golden era of operetta from 1874. The production will feature a double cast of outstanding vocal and instrumental students. Over 60 students, including a choir, will participate in the staged and musical performance. Franz Wittenbrink's version (1992), with its reduced ensemble of nine instrumentalists, provides musical input for the vocal students. Featuring a piano, string quartet, flute, clarinet, harmonium, and percussion, Wittenbrink's chamber music arrangement, without brass instruments, develops a soundscape of morbid beauty.

"Happy is he who forgets what cannot be changed!" Even after the stock market crash of 1873, Strauss used the present as the starting point for his bitter social criticism. Since the announcement of the Berlin Senate's financial cuts, challenging times are also in store for the school's community in the anniversary year of 2025. Strauss presented Viennese society, with all its mendacity, hedonism, fake identities and emotions, with a feast of falsehood and unbridled consumerism – and his operetta was more successful than any other before. With the catchy and ambiguous music of the famous waltz king, the Eisler will provide its audience with a dazzling feast, but will certainly not forget the present. The school's 75th anniversary in the winter semester of 2025/26 also offers a good opportunity to reference the composer and namesake of the school, Hanns Eisler, in the production.

Six performances will take place in the school's Studio Hall, with an A and B premiere on October 17 and 18, and four subsequent performances. A thematic introduction will also be offered in the Chamber Music Hall I one hour before the first and final performances on October 17 and 25. The evening of Johann Strauss's 200th birthday on October 25 will be a very special performance concluding this series. Peter Meiser will be the musical director, and Prof. Claus Unzen will direct the production. The cast for the role of Frosch (Frog)—a role traditionally often played by a comedian—will not be revealed for now and is intended to be a surprise.

The operetta will be performed in german. 

Media partner: rbb radio3

With the kind support of Stiftung am Grunewald and Deutsche Oper Berlin

In cooperation with Wei?enssee Kunsthochschule Berlin and BSP Business & Law School Berlin