The Volksoper’s new commission Aschenbrödels Traum, an Auftragwerk by Martina Eisenreich loosely drawing on Johann Strauss II’s unfinished ballet Aschenbrödel and threaded with familiar passages from Die Fledermaus, arrives brightly packaged as a Märchenoperette. In honesty, it feels closer to German musical: amplified voices, pop-inflected idioms, genre pastiche and dramaturgy that prioritizes colourful set pieces over narrative cohesion. If the intention was to offer a low-threshold, youth-friendly gateway into the Strauss cosmos, the result undeniably achieves spectacle. Editing, however, is an issue.
The premise is dizzying. In present-day Vienna, a young man named Aschenbrödel (Oliver Liebl) moves in with his influencer stepsisters (Julia Koci and Johanna Arrouas), only to find the apartment haunted by the spirit of 1898 typist Ida Grünwald (Juliette Khalil), who is drafting the same Aschenbrödel libretto that once faced a jury of Gustav Mahler and Eduard Hanslick. Cue the arrival of Johann Strauss (Daniel Schmutzhard), a subplot involving Aschenbrödel’s stepmother (Ruth Brauer-Kvam) running a football team, a romance between Aschenbrödel and footballer Danny Robinson (Lionel von Lawrence) and a parallel 1898 romance between their heterosexual counterparts. It is, indeed, everything, all at once.
Axel Ranisch’s libretto (he also directs) assembles so many stories, epochs, media references, queer retellings, meta-historical figures, Instagram-age tropes and social-commentary fragments that the evening feels like scrolling through an over-caffeinated Instagram feed. Beautiful moments appear, then vanish; clever concepts flash briefly, then dissolve into the next idea. Coherence remains stubbornly out of reach.
A same-sex Cinderella couple at the centre? Inspired. A parallel narrative set in 1898? Potentially rich. Mahler and Hanslick (Daniel Ohlenschläger and Stefan Wancura) as a bickering, Loge-bound Hofoperndirektor and critic à la Statler and Waldorf? Genuinely funny. A golden Johann Strauss statue rising from the floor to cough glitter? Hilarious once, thereafter just a mirror of the evening’s sensory overload. By the time inflatable pink bunnies appear across the stage and the football subplot enters with the subtlety of a marching band, I longed for dramaturgical oxygen. The piece wants to be too much – operetta, musical, sitcom, ballet, historical satire, TikTok-fantasy – but the result is a kaleidoscope of impressive shards with little cumulative resonance.
What keeps the evening afloat is the cast’s commitment coupled with a versatile ensemble. Ruth Brauer-Kvam plays Miss Alice/Madame Francine with a mix of comic ferocity, lasciviousness and glamour. Imagined as a brunette, petite, Viennese Rebecca Welton knock-off from Ted Lasso, she commanded every scene, armed with the evening’s wittiest lines, best costumes and key moments when character and storyline sync. Jakob Semotan likewise extracted every possible drop from his double roles as a sleazy football agent and lovelorn butcher. Juliette Khalil, a late addition, was indispensable: her Ida Grünwald provided vocal fireworks and dramatic underpinning, reminding us that there is a story lurking somewhere.
Visually, Falko Herold’s stage designs and Alex Brok’s lighting create worlds that are both clever and atmospheric. Alfred Mayerhofer’s costumes are fun yet uneven, with some characters faring far better than others. Aesthetically brilliant on occasion, other tropes seem rooted more in the late ‘80s than 2025. Musically, the Volksoperorchester, under Leslie Suganandarajah, navigated the score's genre-hopping with verve and delivered some truly enchanting textures. Martina Eisenreich’s score interlaces Strass quotations with newly composed material, aiming for a playful, contemporary operetta idiom. Some transitions charm – the Fledermaus interpolations land easily – but the original numbers feel as underformed as most characters and their storylines. Arias end awkwardly, leaving the audience unsure how to respond, and the rap duet between Danny and Aschenbrödel is cringeworthy.
To be fair, I am hardly the target audience. Aschenbrödels Traum is engineered to lure younger visitors, providing a neon-lit playground replete with humour, queer romance, multimedia excess and cultural mash-ups. Yet ultimately, the performers deliver more polish than the work itself, admirably committing to the chaos. I only wish the piece had trusted fewer ideas long enough to turn them into something more substantial.
