Free from lard and violins: "The revenge of the bat" in the Komische Oper

With a ukulele, a singing saw, the Zucchini Sistaz and Stefan Kurt as the Knave of Hearts, Berlin's opera of hearts offers Johann Strauss in pocket size.

World-famous as the Pfister siblings: the reindeer Gabriel von Eisenstein (Tobias Bonn) with his wife Rosalinde (Christoph Marti) and the ensemble in “Die Rache der Fledermaus” at the Komische Oper. Michael Bigler

An operetta without the typical, classical, kitschy violins - can that work out? Oh yes, and how, that proves now in the comic opera "Die Rache der Fledermaus". It will be played in a version based on Johann Strauss, edited by Stefan Huber and Kai Tietje.

Incidentally, the title comes from Strauss himself, who only decided on “Die Fledermaus” at the end of the composition. How grandiose the original is is also confirmed in this new version, interpreted by only three musicians, the Zucchini Sistaz, as well as by Falk Breitkreuz and Kai Tietje, the musical director of the evening. It includes piano, accordion, bongos, ukulele, guitars and a musical saw - but no violins! Of course, the rushing Viennese waltz sound does not come with such a pocket-sized instrument. The guest performance of the Casinotheater Winterthur trusts the soil of the well-tempered musical base capital - but skilfully and wittily.

The Pfister siblings appear as a married couple

The combo sits with their equipment on a pedestal in the back of the stage, while the front looks rather bare – a couple of very different chairs and stools, that's it (equipment: Heike Seidler). The rest is air and love. And an internal tension between the characters that is as euphoric as it is explosive. Tobias Bonn as Gabriel von Eisenstein and Christoph Marti as Rosalinde, his wife, are world-famous in Berlin as the Pfister siblings. Both show once again how much they can do, whether Bonn light-footedly plays the experienced adulterer or dresses up as a goofy lawyer. Marti has arrived as a betrayed wife, cheating wife and suffragette of female cinnamon bitchiness in the persona of his life – extravagant, sophisticated and a well-cooked feminine claim to the tip of his tongue.

Max Gertsch revolves around this axis of marital cheating as the notary Falke, the hypocritical mastermind of an intrigue that the servants also benefit from: namely the great vocal artist Gabriela Ryffel as the chambermaid Adele and the governess-like, grumpy Viennese Nini Stadlmann as her sister Ida. In between, Alen Hodzovic sings as singer Alfred, who courts Rosalinde, who always melts before his "high B". Meanwhile, Eisenstein, who has to go to jail for eight days because of a trifle, quickly and without her knowledge he has a go at Prince Orlofsky - and there he meets Adele and Ida and even his own wife, whom he does not recognize in her masquerade as a Hungarian countess … And all this at a party without much champagne, which was almost completely eliminated by Stephanie Dietrich as the mischievously robust Orlofsky. This Russian libertine must find happiness in vodka.

Buttery undercut punch lines

It goes haywire, sometimes in your own identity, sometimes in one of the costume rentals. Stefan Huber's grippingly condensed, charmingly enjoyable and infectiously amusing production communicates one thing above all: nothing is what it seems. People lie and cheat unashamedly, but also taste and enjoy. Life, feelings, morals - a game in which you sometimes win, sometimes lose, the main thing is to keep moving.

The combo delivers the accompanying music elegantly and exhilaratingly, sometimes à la Strauss, sometimes Caribbean, sometimes jazzy, sometimes casually swinging. Unfortunately, it cannot be ignored that the production was taken over by a much smaller stage, which has at most a third of the seats opposite the house in Behrenstrasse. That's why the sound technology sometimes has to help out more than would be good for at least a solid mixed sound.

The speaking scenes are not affected by this, for example when Franz Frickel as prison warden Frank returns to his institution after a night of drinking and doesn't know where his head is - especially since the gorgeous Stefan Kurt as the drunken prison warden Frosch continues to annoy him. If the Komische Oper is considered Berlin's opera of hearts, then Stefan Kurt is currently its heartbeat: as the travesty artist Zaza recently in "La Cage aux Folles" , now as a frog in "Die Rache der Fledermaus". Like a weatherproof solo entertainer, he has the audience under control from the start and serves the punchlines with a buttery undercut. And that's how this whole performance is: without violins, but full of love, and without lard, but full of theatricality.