It’s 150 years since Johann Strauss II’s operetta premiered in Vienna and it has been a mainstay of the repertoire ever since. Extravagant extolling of the virtues of champagne is a major feature of Die Fledermaus and so, with the perception of champagne and summer – or what passes for summer – in opera as synonymous, it was a natural choice for If Opera in their final season at Belcombe Court before moving elsewhere.
Motivated by his deep humiliation at being abandoned, post-party, overnight in a park, drunk and in fancy-dress as the titular bat, notary Dr Falke sets a trap that will expose his friend Gabriel von Eisenstein as the unfaithful husband and serial seducer he’s known to be. Ultimately, of course, the willing conspirators in this game of revenge – for which Die Fledermaus has become code – laughingly blame the champagne for fuelling the machinations, the disguises, transgressions and general shenanigans that ensue at Prince Orlofsky’s ball. The notion of vengeance inevitably evaporates as fast as the bubbles, the pain of betrayals dissolved.
Director Simon Butteriss’s take differs from the usual: the sung words were John Mortimer’s familiar translation, but Butteriss’s dramatic narration replaced the spoken dialogue, ostensibly to clarify the various plot threads. He delivered the narration in the character of lawyer Dr Blind with customary style, darting in and out of the action, yet the liberal sprinkling of double entendres and jokey references to Freud didn’t get as many laughs as it could have done. Furthermore, excising the non-singing character of Frosch altogether left the third act without its normal comic-turn, no bad thing given that it can too easily fall flat. This realigning of some of the comedy meant playing up the elements of farce, both in the stage business and when the singers, cheerfully sending themselves up, break into dance.
In the tented theatre, an almost circular stage set against a backdrop of columns and drapes, minimal props are used, first a circle-sofa and then two gilded chairs, the latter even serving as those of an anteroom to the jail where everyone ends up converging. Streamlined to the point of semi-staging, it was nevertheless slickly done and came off thanks to strong vocal performances all round.
Strauss’s perennial appeal is quite simply that, in the right hands, here those of conductor Thomas Blunt, the music fizzes along and the flair with which Blunt handled the subtle give-and-take of phrase-shaping with the singers, plus the pocket-sized Bristol Ensemble, ensured an authentic Viennese feel. The fine soprano of Galina Averina as Rosalinde, the cuckolding and cuckolded wife of Edward Leach’s Eisenstein, stood out, and Matthew Siveter as Frank proved a most entertaining dancer.
