( Photo: Deluxe Photography, Nigel Dickson)
BY JAY NORDLINGER [NY Sun, 21 December 2005]

If it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - and New Year's Eve - it must be "Die Fledermaus" time. And so it is, at the Metropolitan Opera. On Monday night, the company started up a run of Johann Strauss Jr.'s classic operetta, in the marvelous Otto Schenk production (1986). This production has the dialogue in English, and the singing in the original German - a smart arrangement. Rarely do you have so much fun in an opera house, as when you imbibe the Schenk "Fledermaus."