TV OPERA REVIEW : STRAUSS’ ‘FLEDERMAUS’ ON CHANNEL 28

A graceless, hard-driven new Metropolitan Opera production of Johann Strauss’ comic opera “Die Fledermaus” both ended the old year (on Channels 50, 15 and 24 Wednesday) and inaugurated the new one (on Channel 28 Thursday) courtesy of PBS’ “Live From the Met” series.

Spoken in English and sung in German (with subtitles for TV), Otto Schenk’s gauche, heavyhanded staging spilled and sloshed and sprayed more water on the participants than any other project since “The Poseidon Adventure.” It also seemed so excruciatingly slow that you expected it to end next New Year’s Eve.

Though she sang sumptuously, Kiri Te Kanawa made a listless, charmless Rosalinde. Judith Blegen sounded pinched and looked perpetually pained as Adele.

Arguably miscast as the rakish Eisenstein, Hakan Hagegard sang stylishly and contributed his sly sense of comic befuddlement. Michael Devlin made Falke a social smoothie but lacked vocal weight in his big song of brotherhood.

David Rendall expertly sang a whole season’s worth of arias (most of them interpolated) as Alfred. Franz Mazura had great comic authority as Frank and Schenk himself turned up as a memorably sullen/sodden Frosch.

Decently sung, Tatiana Troyanos’ restrained portrayal of Prince Orlofsky often vanished in the vulgar frenzy of Act II, which included something like Viennese slam-dancing set to the interpolated “Thunder and Lightning” polka.

Kirk Browning directed the TV cameras resourcefully. Guenther Schneider-Siemssen’s sets looked ornate, if rather weighty, but Peter J. Hall’s costumes for the leading women were ghastly: hopeless in shape and color. Jeffrey Tate conducted briskly and metronomically--but a stiff, clockwork “Fledermaus” is no “Fledermaus” at all.

Happily, the intermission features provided major compensation, with nine celebrated Met “Fledermaus” veterans reminiscing about far more notable performances than this one, intermittently serenaded by Wagner, Mozart, Bizet and Verdi melodies deftly arranged in Strauss’ style.

Finally, any program that reminds us of the Marx Brothers’ assault on “Il Trovatore” and how Mae West demolished “Samson et Dalila” (included in a Hollywood-at-the-Opera film segment) can’t be wholly without humor or spirit.