Raising a Toast to the New Year With a Unique Presentation of Strauss’ ‘Die Fledermaus’ : Music: San Diego is awash in holiday tunes. The diamond jubilee of Balboa Park’s Spreckels Organ will be launched with two concerts New Year’s Eve.

SAN DIEGO —  It’s no mystery why Johann Strauss’ frothy operetta “Die Fledermaus”--with its nonstop party pranks and champagne toasts--is the evergreen favorite to stage on New Year’s Eve. West Coast Lyric Opera, San Diego’s shoestring semi-professional company, will carry on the tradition locally with a unique “Die Fledermaus” staged in the round at Hillcrest’s Words and Music book gallery Sunday at 8 p.m.

According to Anne Young, the company’s director and musical organizer of this production, the custom of mounting “Die Fledermaus” on New Year’s Eve is a revered Viennese tradition.

“There is nothing in the libretto per se that links the story to New Year’s Eve,” said Young. “But the concert that takes place in the ball scene during the opera’s second act always invites ‘surprise’ guest appearances that take on the character of a party caper.”

“Le Reveillon,” the popular French farce on which Strauss based “Die Fledermaus,” however, is set on Christmas Eve in 19th-Century Paris. Before Strauss could compose his effervescent score, the French libretto (by Meilhac and Halevy, Bizet’s librettists for “Carmen”) was given a German translation and cultural transformation to the Vienna of 1874. The composer premiered “Die Fledermaus” to an approving Viennese audience in April, 1874, and with its even more successful return the following season, it became a staple of the Vienna stage.

Young’s cast of youthful singers for this weekend’s performance of “Die Fledermaus” includes sopranos LeAnn Sandel and Dawn Veree Harrison as Rosalinda and Adele, respectively; tenor Steven Williams as the dashing Alfred, and tenor Daniel Leal as Eisenstein. Mezzo-soprano Ava Estis will sing the pants role of Prince Orlofsky, whose lavish party is the setting for most of the operetta.

For information concerning this performance, which will be surrounded by a catered dinner, dancing, and a reprise of the operetta’s champagne toast at midnight, call 298-4011.

New Year’s Eve is associated locally with the anniversary of the opening of the Panama-California Exposition on Dec. 31, 1914. Among the Balboa Park institutions that date from the 1915 exposition, whose ornate Spanish Colonial buildings still give the park its architectural identity, the Spreckels Organ will observe 75th anniversary festivities throughout the coming year. Sunday, civic organist Robert Plimpton will play two programs to launch the organ’s diamond jubilee.

At 2 p.m., Plimpton will perform music associated with Balboa Park, including organ solos by the city’s former civic organists, Humphrey Stewart (the Englishman who was San Diego’s first civic organist), Royal Brown, and Charles Shatto. Plimpton, who has been civic organist since January, 1985, plays his recitals every Sunday afternoon throughout the year. This Sunday’s offerings will include Balboa Park audience favorites such as Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and Mulet’s “Thou art the Rock.”

Soprano Pamela Anne Maran will join Plimpton to sing a number of popular songs from 1915, including the song that was the Panama-California Exposition’s theme song, a work Plimpton unearthed in the archives of the San Diego Historical Society. At 11:30 p.m., Plimpton will give a short organ recital that will end just before midnight, when a brief ceremony will mark the precise moment of the exposition’s 75th anniversary.