Mischief, misrule, mistaken identity and an uproarious party that ends with a night in the cells, all of it in the service of a bizarre fancy-dress revenge ploy, Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, was never meant to challenge grand opera for profundity. Poking fun at Austrian high society from the stage of the new Court Opera just as Emperor Franz Joseph was remodelling civic Vienna as a series of gigantic wedding cakes, this is satire at its most marzipanned. However, as Dr Falke’s patient and cunning plan suggests, the fullness of time can reveal another story, and Barrie Kosky and his dream team are the ones to tell it, in a production which opened in Munich last Christmas.
We open with a bat ballet. The question remains whether there is quite enough to sustain its choreography over the full extent of Strauss’ generous overture, but it’s a question best answered by simply repeating the phrase “bat ballet” and acknowledging the irresistibly comic effect of a chorus of umbrella-like wings, united in each emphatic flap.
Gabriel von Eisenstein, played with wide-eyed boyish aplomb by Björn Bürger, rises from a pink marshmallow to find himself marooned on Rebecca Ringst’s dark dolls’ house vision of Vienna, where all those fondant-coloured façades are danced in and out of place by pirouetting Chiroptera and for every surface that looks as smooth as icing, you can be sure there is something of dubious complexity lurking behind. Ringst’s design perfectly captures the weird, infantilising power of Vienna’s architecture, and as two grown men rough and tumble on soft furnishings the colour of boiled sweets, one can’t help remembering that this particular caper was borne of a society unwittingly waiting for one its most famous sons to finish medical school. As Alfred and Rosalinde sing the ever-seductive “Glücklich ist, wer vergißt das, was nicht zu ändern ist” (Happy is he who can forget what cannot be changed), Sigmund Freud is calling from the wings “Halt mein Bier!”
Much of Fledermaus’s appeal – for audiences and casts alike – is the way it sends itself up, and this Kosky manages with a light touch, a stagehand appearing just in time to save ‘the tenor’ Alfred – or is it Myles Mykkanen – from himself in one of the show’s several hymns to the benefits of alcohol. Mykkanen has all the volume necessary to ensure nessun dorma but convincing tenderness and comedy in all the right places, too. More than ready for her close-up by the end of the night, Sydney Mancasola’s Adele is a masterwork of glorious vocal versatility and serious comic chops.
Hulkar Sabirova was nothing short of a knock-out as Rosalinde, from her deft coloratura to a rich and generous lyricism and a terrific presence that really came into its own as she donned the mask of the Hungarian princess (“Hungarian” is the libretto’s wink-wink word) and delivered her showstopping Csárdás on a stage that by this time looked like an outpouring of heaven’s own chocolate box. And as for the formidable Marina Viotti in the so-called ‘trouser role’ of Prince Orlofsky... well, let’s just say her performance rather outstrips the terminology.
About those costumes. Long-time Kosky collaborator Klaus Bruns fully embraces operetta’s ‘tits and teeth’ aspect and created a jaw-droppingly fabulous array of glittering creatures be they horned, bearded, feathered or glittered. Vienna’s nightlife has never looked so wild or gorgeous. Lorenzo Viotti, sporting his own very on-trend moustache in the pit, whipped the willing Netherlands Philharmonic into something like amphetamine frenzy, bringing each downbeat of the Waltz King’s hypnotic one-two-three round and round ever faster.
After early indications that this might be the direction of travel, the second half goes the full Wes Anderson, with identical gaolers running in formation around Ringst’s Escheresque house of correction, variously in pursuit of keys, errant prisoners, the old ‘someone’s at the door’ gag and so on. In an inspired addition, Max Pollack tap-dances his way through the Pizzicato Polka, as Frank – the superb Frederik Bergman – finds something to protect us all from the hardest working knickers in showbiz just in time to take charge of the day’s legal proceedings.
For a show as silly as this to be more than the sum of its fancy parts, it needs a soul. And this Kosky and the team capture perfectly in the beautiful “Bruderlein und Schwesterlein” as, over a stage overflowing with loved-up, fantastical drag-creatures and befuddled principal characters, giant chandeliers descend to twinkle the perennial Christmas hope that whoever we are – mistress or maid, horns or tails, in love or in jail – if we can only embrace our differences and be friends, then our lives will be the very best sort of party.
