Grange Festival’s Fledermaus is a sprawling new production which improves with each act and ends with rib-tickling gags from flamboyant cabaret artiste Myra du Bois. By the time you’ve finished laughing at this drag queen’s brilliant Dame Edna style delivery, you may have forgotten the essence of Johann Strauss II’s revenge-filled entertainment and wafer-thin plot. Revenge is a dish usually served cold, but here it’s more warmly mischievous. The flying “bat” of the title, once abandoned, drunk, in fancy dress and ridiculed, gets his own back on his chum Gabriel von Eisenstein by showing him up as a philanderer.
With its toe-tapping tunes and frothy farce, Fledermaus is vintage operetta, and one might add, the Nyetimber of country-house opera. At least, it ought to be, but director Paul Curran creates an uneven traversal, seemingly uncertain as to how best to join each of its three acts. His concept works best in Act 2’s gaudy nightclub where fin-de-siècle Vienna is transplanted to a hedonistic Berlin of the 1930s, its masked ball with Johanna Town’s boudoir lighting complementing Gabriella Ingram’s racy costumes and Gary McCann’s KitKat Club evocation all belong to Christopher Isherwood’s Cabaret. And with that comes no shortage of leather-clad cross dressers enjoying every moment of their louche parading, surely already familiar to Hampshire’s highbrow set.
But Curran’s concept elsewhere doesn’t always add up. Act 1’s grandiose drawing room could have belonged to a Michael Frayn comedy or the setting for a cosy Hampstead bridge club. What’s more, Eisenstein and Falke behave like two sixth formers on a jolly jape – all very P.G. Wodehouse. If it feels limp by comparison with the decadence of Act 2, the grey-walled jail of Act 3 (already dramatically weak), is enlivened by the quick-witted inuendo from Myra du Bois who upstages the prison warden with his one-liners, and scolds one unfortunate gentleman in the front row for what he might have been doing under his straw hat. With all the individualised and ill-fitting parts of Paul Curran’s production, it’s tempting to suggest he’s created a Frankenstein’s monster with each limb (or act) not quite belonging to the other.
This applies too for some of the singing which, whilst being uniformly impressive, brings some odd characterisation with Ellie Laugharne as the maid Adele attempting to summon the ghost of Liza Doolittle from My Fair Lady. Similarly, Darren Jeffrey’s prison governor Frank seems to have stepped out of the same musical, his diamond geezer portrayal and bad French amplified when he doubles as the Duke of Bastille at Prince Orlofsky’s ball. Maybe these echoes are part of Curran’s vision to make a historical connection between Strauss’s 1874 caper with the development of the Musical. I’m not convinced it works.
Regardless of those reservations, casting is effective with Laugharne utterly captivating by Act 2 and gloriously agile in ‘Mein Herr Marquis’. Sylvia Schwartz looked the part of the entitled Rosalinde and took the demands of her Csárdás in her stride, even if its dreaming is not fully explored. As her Italian lover Alfred, Trystan Llyr Griffiths possesses a natural stage presence and comic timing, plying his seductive charms on Rosalinde whenever he can with borrowings from well-known arias – the epitome of a self-regarding operatic tenor. Ben McAteer shines as Falke, his warm baritone beguiling in ‘Brüderlein’, where he sings with real affection and involvement. Andrew Hamilton’s Eisenstein makes the most of his deceptions and slick patter, his teddy bear bringing echoes of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, while Claudia Huckle as the easily bored hostess Prince Orlovsky sails through ‘Ich lade gern mir Gäste ein’ telling us exactly why he needs amusement.
And amusement is somewhat impaired in John Mortimer’s now-dated English translation which suggests the writer has absorbed humour that might have been funny 40 years ago, and with certain phrases linked to television sitcoms of the ‘80s. But at least Myra du Bois brings everything to life and saves what might be an unremarkable evening. If the stage direction lacks coherence, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Paul Daniel thoroughly enjoy themselves and supply bucketfuls of Viennese charm.
David Truslove
Die Fledermaus
Music: Johann Strauss II, Operetta in three acts
Libretto: Carl Haffner and Richard Genée based on the play Le Réveillon by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. Sung in English in a translation by John Mortimer
Cast and production staff:
Gabriel von Eisenstein – Andrew Hamilton; Rosalinde – Sylvia Schwartz; Adele – Ellie Laugharne; Alfred – Tristan Llyr Griffiths; Dr. Falke – Ben McAteer; Dr. Blind – John Graham-Hall; Frank – Darren Jeffrey; Prince Orlofsky – Claudia Huckle; Frosch – Myra du Bois, Ida – Isabelle Atkinson.
Director – Paul Curran; Designer – Gary McCann; Lighting Designer – Johanna Town; Associate Costume Designer – Gabriella Ingram; Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Grange Festival Chorus, Conductor – Paul Daniel
The Grange Festival; Northington, Hampshire, 20 June 2025
Top image: Ellie Laugharne (Adele), Claudia Huckle (Prince Orlovsky), and Andrew Hamilton (Eisenstein)
All photos © Richard Hubert Smith