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Hey everyone! I am a young accompanist and conductor. I am going to be conducting Die Fledermaus later this year, and it will be my first experience with a fully professional opera production company. We are using a reduced pit of string quintet (vn1,vn2,va,vc,db) and piano. I will be conducting from the piano. Here is something I would happily accept advice on:

I have 2 options. 1) Get the original instrumentation and full or wind-only piano reduction; have the strings play their parts and piano fill in the rest. This would be easier to find.

2) Find an arrangement for string quintet and piano. This may sound better because it will sub the strings in for most of the voices originally intended for winds, and I feel that strings could better duplicate this than a piano could.

I feel that the second option will create a better sound, but I am not sure if the difference in sound between my 2 choices will be so subtle that I might as well go with my first option. Seeing as for the second option, I would either have to find the arrangement from a credible source, or do it myself (and I don't have too much free time). Last year I music directed and conducted from the piano Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance" and I got a great reduced-pit orchestration from a website; however, I know that I lucked out because I could have gotten crap, there was no real way of knowing.

Anyone have any opinions on this? -Sam

Could you find a clarinet, or a flute, and/or maybe at least one french horn? Even just to "suggest" the colours of the original woodwind and brass parts they make a big difference in a reduced orchestration. Just string tone only will be very dull for the audience

You might try to throw in an acoustic guitar mostly to fill in chords (instead of or in addition to the piano) but occasionally to double one of the string lines. While you're at it, throw in a mandolin every once and a while too. You can hire a mandolin player or have one of the violinists try to fake it (tuning and fingering are identical to a violin). You'd thus end up the sort of coffee-house ensemble that can sound very echt-Viennese if done well. (Mahler used these instruments in his 7th symphony for pretty much the same effect.)

--Sixtus

neil_mcgowan wrote:Just string tone only will be very dull for the audience

String instruments have by far the widest range of tone color of any group. It can be very interesting .

If it were just about any other opera than Fledermaus, I'd recommend some of the added instruments suggested by the previous posters. But this is Strauss, who really leans on his strings. I have a feeling (as a non-professional) that option A will suit you just fine.

But then again, maybe an electric bass to liven up the party scene...

If you need more music for the party scene, I'm thinking of doing an virtuoso arrangement for string quartet of "Funkytown."

I'm only half kidding.

--Sixtus