The Operagoer Die Fledermaus at the Agassiz Theatre through December 13

KNOWING even less about bats than I know about opera, I was not a liule abashed last night to arrive at the Agassiz only to discover that Johann Strauss Die Fledermans (in English) is actually subtitled "The Bat's Revenge." Now what in the world do I know about bats? (To be honest, I was able to recall a snatch of lvric from Il est Side Story that sang about bats out of hell, but I hardly thought that would see me through.) However, halfway through the second act, it became somewhat clear that the Eledermans libretto isn't about bats at all. No, it is all about unfaithful husbands, masked balls, hermaphrodite princes, and all the other staples of what we have come to know and love as I ligh Camp. I breathed a proverbial sigh of relief.

But, although I had escaped the trees, I wasn't out of the woods. There was still my operatic ignorance to contend with. So, making every effort to summon up my best Jacksonianly Democratic facade, I settled back, confident that the very commonness of my heart would ferret out a couple of passable truths or, at very least, an exploitable metaphor or two.

As it turns out, I really didn't have to worry; the Harvard Gilbert and Sullivan Players do a swell job of making this kind of flufly-puffy opera delightfully accessible. Sitting there listening to all those super waltzes. I suddenly realized that even I know something about music. For hadn't Johann Strauss written the score for last year's 2001 in collaboration with his brother Richard? Sure. Opera is all around us.

That being the case, then, you'll have to admit that the G and S Players make the best of a good thing. Although their styles of comic acting are wildly erratic. when any-and. eventually, all-of the company fall into the dozens of wonderfully silly danc? steps that are sprinkled amid the song, there is little one can do but surrender to the general frivolity of the occasion.

What reason there is behind this show's musical rhymes is really just an excuse to throw together a potpourri of characatures: Rosalinda (Martha Ecclestone), the lead soprano, is a kind of Tricia Nixon who let her hair down: Alfred (Neil Cohen) is her would-be lover, a tenor with an endearing Bela Lugosi accent: then, there is Rosalinda's husband (Peter Kazaras), who is rather too confused to ever realize he's being cuckolded; and, finally. Adele (Leslie Luxemburg), as a chambermaid gone actress, and Frank (Bob Noonoo), as a jail-keep gone marquis. What the women occasionally lack in projection, the whole ensemble makes up for in esprit, so on balance, one can offer no complaint.

AT THE CENTER of both this production and its plot is David Hammond, who serves as stage director while also playing Dr. Filke, the vengeful young man who is the focus of all the intrigue. Outfitted in tails and cane. Hammond looks like a Beerbohm cartoon for the endpapers of a Firbank novel. Little wonder, then, that he is exactly into the spirit of the piece.

My apologies to music director John Miner and his orchestra. While a polysyllabic evaluation of their performance is quite beyond me, I was able to notice that tempos seemed quite spirited, the audience seemed quite appreciative, and the female timpanist was quite lovely. Dic Fledermans (in English) runs over three hours, what with everyone singing away instead of just saving things outright but no one-singers, musicians, or audience-appears to tire along the way.

In fact, there is a curious timelessness about the whole evening at Agassiz. In a day when we are all alienated or committed or anguishing somewhere in between, it's quite surprising to find a bunch of kids dedicated to bringing off an entertainment so blatantly irrelevant. In its way, that can be really refreshing.

In lieu of more articulate criticism, though, maybe I can pass on how a friend of mine tells how he was once invited to dinner at one of those girls' junior colleges that dot Commonwealth Ave. Led by his date into a gorgeously panelled and chandeliered dining room, he exclaimed "Isn't this beautiful!" "Yes," his date sadly agreed, "it's beautiful, but it's too bad I'm too dumb to appreciate it."

That was rather like my reaction to Die Fledermans (in English) . It was really entertaining; too bad 1 was too dumb to appreciate it.