By JONATHAN DEVIN - The Daily News -

Opera Memphis, which opened its 2011-2012 season with the torrid romance and drama of “Tosca” now invites audiences to sit back and laugh.

“The rest of the year it’s all happy endings,” said Ned Canty, Opera Memphis’ general director and stage director for Johann Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus,” which will be staged at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre Jan. 21 and 24.

Already the production has a couple notable firsts.

Namely, the Jan. 3 preview performance which was broadcast live on WKNO filled beyond capacity, sending Opera Memphis staff searching the Clark Opera Memphis Center for more chairs – something that hasn’t happened before. Canty took that as a sign that efforts to interest new adult audiences in opera are working.

“There were a lot of new faces,” Canty said. “We’ve been doing so much in the past year in terms of adult outreach. The previews are great if you’re not ready to commit to opera, then you can come on a date with opera.”

A familiar face was also on hand – Marguerite Piazza, who performed the soprano role, Rosalinde, at the Metropolitan Opera.

For Canty, who has been in his position for more than a year, this is the first Opera Memphis production that he has directed. Previously, he directed operas as a freelancer.Among other things, he’s gotten a good sense of how his own facilities and resources work for the stage directors he hires to direct other shows, including an appreciation for the natural light in his center’s rehearsal hall, something he said most operatic rehearsal spaces don’t have.

“And when you’re trying to direct a comedy, that can have a big effect,” Canty said. “I’ve also found a great efficiency when the director part of me says, hey, wouldn’t it be great if we could rent an elephant? And the general director part of me says no we can’t afford it.”

“Die Fledermaus” is a textbook piece, a popular opera that many singers cut their teeth on, but Canty said that fits well with his intent for new audiences. The story line is similar to that of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” or the Broadway musical “The Fantastiks” in which couples fall in love and are lured apart only to realize their love is still strong. It will be sung in English.

It’s a comedy of errors about Rosalinde, an Italian opera diva, wooed by a young tenor, Alfred, though she is already married. Her husband, Eisenstein, is sentenced to two weeks in jail for a minor offense but manages to postpone his incarceration until after a masked ball, unbeknownst to his wife. Amid the slightly drunken masked buffoonery, both make plans for elicit affairs while falling for snares meant to catch the other in the act.

“It’s about two people who are married and at that seven-year itch period,” Canty said. “They love each other and love their lives, but all of these events happen that make them remember what it feels like to be single.

“For a night they spend some time being tempted to stray outside their marriage vows and recapture their youth and in the end they don’t. I think it ends with them realizing that what they started with is more valuable because they know what it’s like to be tempted away from it.”

Caroline Worra, returning to Opera Memphis, will sing the role of Rosalinde, alongside Ryan MacPherson as Alfred and tenor Dominic Armstrong as Eisenstein. As a last second fill-in, local actor/director Ann Marie Hall took the role of Frosch, the non-singing drunken jailer.

Steven Osgood of the Metropolitan Opera music staff will conduct a 40-plus piece orchestra, which Canty said is as much the star as anyone on stage.

“‘Fledermaus’ is an example of how fun music can be,” Canty said. “The thing about Strauss is that he was a composer of dance music. All of it is designed to make you want to dance. If you’re doing it right, the audience will want to get up on the stage and join the party.

“There’s a level of wit to the music which makes it a masterpiece. Opera can have a sense of humor.”

And it helps that for once, nobody dies.

Tickets for “Die Fledermaus” can be purchased by calling 257-3100 or by visiting www.operamemphis.org.