The Rose of Stambul Chicago Folks Operatta

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Three of Four Stars - "Obscure operetta a Turkish delight...A rose is a rose is a rose, but this "Rose" makes a sweet summer diversion". - John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune 7/18/11

 

“…singing was excellent...19-piece orchestra under the baton of John Frantzen brings out the whimsical yet elegant filigrees in the accompaniment…. a blend of flirtatious romance and farcical silliness”Albert Williams, Chicago Reader 7/21/11

 

Pick of the Week  -"Along with one or two other stage works, Leo Fall's tuneful Viennese operetta (1916) was enough to ensure him a place of honor among the light opera composers who followed Lehar and Kalman.  Chicago Folks Operetta dusts off one of the Austrian master's most durable scores, in its Midwest premiere. " - Chicago Tribune 7/15/11

 

Summer 2011 Must-See Classical Events -"For the past five years, the husband-and-wife team behind Chicago Folks Operetta has exposed audiences to the lighthearted joy of operetta. Now, Gerald Frantzen and Alison Kelly bring a dash of the Ottoman Empire and Roaring Twenties gaiety in a colorful production of The Rose of Stambul. " - Mia Clarke, TimeOut Chicago 7/7/11

 

Tix $35/30.  Performances Thu-Sat 730pm, Matinees Sun 2p.


07/16/11 - 07/31/11

Thu-Sat 730pm and Sun 2p


Three of Four Stars - Obscure operetta a Turkish Delight - John Von Rhein, Chicago Tribune 7/18/11"Chicago Folks Operetta has never met a forgotten operetta it doesn't like. Or so it would seem. Last summer the enterprising troupe treated "Arizona Lady," a singing-cowboy rarity by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman, to its belated American premiere.

Now the good Folks are back, ensconced for the rest of the month at the charmingly intimate, if minimally air-conditioned, Chopin Theatre in
Wicker Park, for what is billed as the first U.S. performances in more than 85 years of another seldom-heard confection, Leo Fall's "The Rose of Stambul." They do an engaging job of it.


The Austrian composer never could eclipse Franz Lehar's enduring popularity in this Viennese genre, although "Rose of Stambul" (1916) achieved considerable popularity among the war-weary audiences of Vienna and Berlin.

While the score is uneven in musical inspiration, it offers a handful of delectable melodies, including the title tune, one of several waltzes that stud the score like cherries in a puffy Bundt cake. Also, the harmonies, tinged with intriguing, quasi-Turkish exoticism appropriate to the harem setting, and Fall's almost Wagnerian use of through-composed forms, reveal a craft more sophisticated than that of many of his contemporaries.


This is the second Fall operetta to be presented by husband-and-wife company directors Gerald Frantzen and Alison Kelly. Can Fall's masterpiece, "Madame Pompadour," be far behind?


The trifling libretto — here given in a new English translation by artistic director Frantzen and dramaturge Hersh Glagov that's rife with punning groaners — continues a fascination of
European composers with Ottoman Empire culture that gave the world such operas as Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio" and Rossini's "L'Italiana in Algeri." Its romantic contrivances, ostensibly about women's rights in Turkey, really are there to poke fun at Viennese social and sexual mores of Fall's day.

Westernized education has made the Turkish pasha's daughter, Kondja Gul (Kimberly McCord), a fiercely independent young woman who has fallen madly in love with a European novelist who calls himself Andre Lery. Their only contact has been through his passionate love letters. What Kondja doesn't know is that Lery is actually Achmed Bey (Frantzen), the Turkish prince her father has arranged for her to marry. The comedy of mistaken identities goes on at improbable length before its happy resolution just before the final curtain.


A talented and appealing cast worked hard at Saturday's opening performance to flavor Fall's Turkish taffy. Not even their earnest efforts could redeem a first act that was long on exposition, short on memorable music and ill-tuned in the choral singing and the playing of conductor John Frantzen's rather scrappy chamber orchestra.


Matters perked up considerably from Act 2 onward, beginning with Gerald Frantzen's Achmed serenading Kondja's handmaidens in the rousing, Spanish-style "All You Women." He used his bright, full lyric tenor with gusto throughout the show, cutting a handsome and sympathetic figure as the ardent hero who is trapped by his own deception.


McCord had a more complex character to convey as the thoroughly modern Kondja, who, still not convinced as to her new husband's true identity, insists he court her for a month following their nuptials.


The alluring soprano brought winning temperament to her wedding-night joust with Frantzen, along with a warm, vibrant voice of size and quality.


Folks Operetta general director Kelly and Erich Buchholz, a company stalwart, were a singing-and-dancing delight as the story's comic couple, the Turkish girl Midili and her German suitor, Fridolin. Buchholz kicked up his high heels in an exuberant drag number that looked like something out of "La Cage aux Folles," 60 years before the fact. Robert Morrissey proved himself a master of the astonished comic take as Fridolin's father.


August Tye supplied the choreography, Kristine Fachet the colorful costumes. Javier Bernardo and Desiree Hassler will alternate with Frantzen and McCord as the romantic leads.


A rose is a rose is a rose, but this "Rose" makes a sweet summer diversion".


" Chicago Folks Operetta cultivates 'The Rose of Stambul' " - Albert Williams, Chicago Reader 7/21/11

Chicago has several companies devoted to classical music theater, and most of them rely on proven crowd-pleasers to bolster their box office take. Lyric Opera's upcoming season includes The Tales of Hoffmann and Show Boat as well as a laundry list of operatic standards such as The Magic Flute. The more adventurous Chicago Opera Theater will be presenting rarely seen works by Handel and Shostakovich, but also throwing in their own version of The Magic Flute. And although it was created as a forum for operetta, Evanston's Light Opera Works is turning increasingly to the Broadway repertoire. They'll offer The Secret Garden and a Rodgers & Hart revue later this year.

Then there's Chicago Folks Operetta,  a little off-Loop troupe that champions the unfamiliar, the forgotten, the downright obscure. Founded in 2006 by singers Gerald Frantzen and Alison Kelly, CFO specializes in neglected gems from the Silver Age of Viennese operetta—roughly the first two decades of the 20th century—which followed the Golden Age that produced works like Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus. Among CFO's past productions are Springtime and Cloclo by Franz Lehár and Arizona Lady by Emmerich Kálmán. This summer the company is serving up The Rose of Stambul by Leo Fall, Alfred Grünwald, and Julius Brammer.

The what by who? No doubt The Rose of Stambul is a rarity, and the names of its authors are little known outside a circle of aficionados. But Fall was one of the most prolific composers of his era, penning more than 20 operettas between 1905 and his death in 1925. Brammer and Grünwald collaborated with Kálmán and Strauss as well as Fall.

First performed in 1916 at Vienna's Theater an der Wien, The Rose of Stambul was escapist fluff for theatergoers seeking a respite from the war that would soon bring the Austro-Hungarian Empire crashing down around them. Lee and J.J. Shubert brought it to Broadway in 1922 but discarded much of Fall's music and all of the Brammer-Grünwald libretto, substituting new material by Sigmund Romberg and Harold Atteridge. Now CFO's Frantzen and dramaturg Hersh Glagov have devised a faithful new English translation of the Fall/Brammer/Grünwald original that sings quite smoothly. Clearly a labor of love, this American premiere is a significant achievement despite some disturbing deficiencies in the production.

Set just before the outbreak of World War I, the action ranges from a harem in Istanbul to a honeymoon resort in the Swiss Alps. The story is sheer clockwork contrivance. A Turkish pasha's daughter, Kondja Gul, has been promised to diplomat Achmed Bey by her politically ambitious papa. She's heartbroken because she's secretly in love with a French poet, André Lery. Kondja has never actually met Lery—their romance has been conducted by mail ever since she wrote him a fan letter. But it just so happens that "André Lery" is a nom de plume used by Achmed, whose challenge is to make Kondja fall out of love with his alter ego and in love with him. A subplot concerns harem girl Midili Hanum, and her secret boyfriend, a German businessman named Fridolin Müller who disguises himself as a woman in order to abduct Midili from the seraglio.

The melodic freshness and rhythmic buoyancy of Fall's score are the hallmarks of a first-rate musical craftsman. There are polkas, barcarolles, quadrilles, even a Parisian can-can performed in drag by Fridolin. And of course there's a string of lilting, lyrical, eminently hummable waltzes. Strauss's influence is evident, and there are also hints of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, but the music is never predictable or imitative. Fall's arcing melodic style is distinctive, and a 19-piece orchestra under the baton of John Frantzen (Gerald's brother) brings out the whimsical yet elegant filigrees in the accompaniment. It's all very gemütlich, and the libretto adds a blend of flirtatious romance and farcical silliness.

Because of the challenging nature of the vocal music, the lead roles are double cast. The performance I attended featured Desirée Hassler as Kondja and Javier Bernardo as Achmed. Their singing was excellent, especially Hassler's. Company cofounder Kelly and Erich Buchholz were charming as Midili and Fridolin, and the chorus sang brightly, balancing nicely with the orchestra without any need for electronic amplification.

Ironically, the high musical quality of this nonunion effort makes the shortcomings of its stagecraft all the more glaring. The clunky blocking, uneven pacing, amateurish acting, bland choreography, and community-theater-level sets and costumes of Kathryn Kamp's production are utterly at odds with its adventurous musical intentions. I'd recommend The Rose of Stambul to operetta lovers looking for something off the beaten path. But if CFO wants to be taken seriously, it'll have to bring its theatrical values up to snuff “.

 

Pick of the Week  -"Along with one or two other stage works, Leo Fall's tuneful Viennese operetta (1916) was enough to ensure him a place of honor among the light opera composers who followed Lehar and Kalman.  The plot has to do with a Turkish pasha's daughter who has her own ideas about whom she will marry.  Chicago Folks Operetta dusts off one of the Austrian master's most durable scores, in its Midwest premiere.  The 10 performances are based on a new translation by Hersh Glagov and artistic director Gerald Frantzen.  John Frantzen conducts; Karhryn Kamp directs. " - Chicago Tribune 7/15/11

 

Summer 2011 Must-See Classical Events  -"For the past five years, the husband-and-wife team behind Chicago Folks Operetta has exposed audiences to the lighthearted joy of operetta. Now, Gerald Frantzen and Alison Kelly bring a dash of the Ottoman Empire and Roaring Twenties gaiety in a colorful production of The Rose of Stambul. Set in an Istanbul harem during the collapse of the empire, Leo Fall’s comedic caper utilizes a new translation from the German by CFO dramaturg Hersh Glagov and artistic director Frantzen. This is the first U.S. performance of the romantic rib tickler in more than 85 years, and will please anyone who wished Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris was nonfiction" - Mia Clarke, TimeOut Chicago 7/7/11

 

 

 

 

 

From Chicago Folks Operetta - Chicago Folks Operetta presents the richly romantic operetta The Rose of Stambul, by Leo Fall.  Set in a harem in Istanbul (Stambul) during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.  Kemal Pasha has arranged an advantageous marriage for his daughter Kondja Gul.  Kondja, with her western education, has ideas of her own.

 

The Opera had its American premiere in 1922 at the Shubert Theater in New York City. In keeping with the practices of the times, the production featured an altered story and interpolated a number of songs by other composers. This  hybrid show  enjoyed a successful run of 122 performances but was a far cry from the original.  Our new English translation, by Hersh Glagov and Gerald Frantzen,  is more faithful to the original German book and lyrics.  Featuring some of Chicago’s finest singers and a fifteen piece  chamber orchestra, it is a show that you will not want to miss.

 

Tix $35/30.  Performances Thu-Sat 730p, Matinees Sun 2p.

Director
Kathryn Kamp

Performers
Gerald Frantzen (Achmed Bey); Javier Bernardo (Achmed Bey); Kimberly McCord (Kondja Gül); Desiree Hassler (Kondja Gül); Alison Kelly (Midili); Erich Buchholz (Fridolin); Sarah Bockel (Durlane); Khaki Pixley (Güzela); Nicole Hill (Djamileh); Malia Ropp (Fatme); Robert Morrissey (Müller Sr.); Chris Guerra (Pasha); Aaron Benham (Palace Guard/Hotel Director); Eric Casady (Palace Guard/Bellhop); Michelle Buck (Desirée); Pamela Williams (Bül-Bül); Julia Tarlo (Emine)

Production
John Frantzen - Composer; Julian Pike - Light Desinger; Joe Schermoly - Set Designer; Kristine Fachet - Costume Designer; August Tye - Choreographer; Rose Freeman - Stage Manager; Dennis Northway - Coach/Rehearsal Pianist; Anatoliy Torchinskiy - Rehearsal Pianist

Tags: Theater, Old Europe, 2011