THE SONGBIRD: Diana Damrau was born in 1971 Günzburg in Bavaria, Germany. Her operatic debut role in Würzburg in 1995 was Barbarina. Her debut in Vienna came in 2000 as Queen of the Night, followed by Salzburg in 2001 as the Celestial Voice in "Don Carlo" and as Najade to Natalie Dessay's Zerbinetta. Soon after came a continuous series of leading roles at the major opera houses around the world, including the gala reopening of La Scala in 2004. The Met signed her up first for Zerbinetta in 2005, and she has been a become one of their star sopranos with about 135 performances of 17 roles (plus a few gala concerts), including premiering seven new productions.
THE MUSIC: "Die Fledermaus" is the most performed operetta in the world to the point of essentially coming to define the genre. It premiered in Vienna in 1874, composed by Johann Strauss II to a libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée that was in turn based on a French adaptation of an earlier German play. The work has two principal soprano roles: Rosalinde, a married woman of means, and her maid Adele, a coloratura soubrette. Adele’s second aria, "Spiel ich die unschuld vom lande" in Act Three, gives her a chance to audition her acting skills by impersonating three different stage roles: a country girl, a queen, and an aristocratic Parisienne. Damrau interpolates a High E6 into the short cadenza before the finale phrases.