"The Bat's Revenge": Singing is against the house rules

Lots of deceived swindlers: bon vivant Eisenstein (Tobias Bonn, in the armchair) and his wife Adele (Christoph Marti) at the fatal masked ball.

Photo:  Michael Bigler

A pocket-sized Johann Strauss operetta: “Die Rache der Fledermaus” in the Komische Oper: wonderful parody and homage at the same time.

Everything is different. Everything purged. Slimmed down. On the back burner. And yet, and especially, very exciting and new. You've never experienced Johann Strauss's "Die Fledermaus" like this before. No lavish masked ball. No pompous backdrops. No crowds waltzing. And no choir!

A few chairs and armchairs stand on the otherwise empty stage of the Komische Oper. And 14 ladies and gentlemen who sing us the palatable overture a cappella. As a polyphonic choir that sings in confusion at first. It's clear from the start: It's not just the title that's different here - the evening is called "The Bat's Revenge" . The radical cure is a program.

The famous Strauss opera - completely slimmed down

Director Stefan Huber – who has already reanimated the almost forgotten operettas “Clivia” and “Roxy and her miracle team” at the Komische Oper – came up with the idea when he was filming “Die Fledermaus” in Switzerland a few years ago in the lush, familiar plush and pomp staged. Nevertheless, two Viennese women complained that the sayings were missing, which were not in the original text but had crept in over the years.

This triggered artistic and creative defiance in the director: what if you left out a lot more, if you reduced the play to its inner core. So you have to be grateful to the Viennese women. Because they initiated a memorable evening, albeit unintentionally.

Of the 15 people in the overture, five are musicians, two men and the trio of women Zucchini Sistaz, who then step onto a podium. And play music visibly. Only five instead of 30 musicians! But with countless instruments. No violins though!. But for what you usually don't hear with operettas, guitar, ukulele, jazz trumpet, whistle, Jew's harp. That snarls. That scratches. Provides a whole new sound. Into which sometimes cracked pop songs and hits creep in.

The well-known comedy takes place in front of the pedestal - which probably everyone knows, since this is one of the most successful and most frequently performed Viennese operettas from the golden age of this genre. A single collection of betrayed swindlers: the bon vivant Gabriel von Eisenstein, who has to go to prison for eight days, but doesn't go there straight away, as he tells his wife, but instead wants to waste another evening with strange women with his best friend.

His wife Rosalinde does not mourn after him. She will go to the same masquerade ball of Prince Orlofsky. Just like Adele, the Eisensteins' chambermaid, who is fed up with the constant waitressing and (in her mistress's dress) strives for something higher. The prison warden is also among the guests. And all under false identities. First a lot of hiding, then a lot of revelations.

A running gag: "Don't sing!" - "Singing is against the house rules"

That was the way people had fun 150 years ago. Or even saw it as criticism of the degenerate Viennese society. With all the evergreens that the composer is said to have written in just 42 nights - it is precisely the antiquated image of women and the exhibited toxic masculinity that spoil the fun of the "Fledermaus" today. Can you still play it unbroken?

But that's how it works. In this condensed form it is homage, parody and criticism at the same time. And whenever it gets too melodic, a running gag, sharply contoured: “Don't sing!” “What kind of tenor babble is that?” Or, in the last scene, which takes place in prison: “Singing is against the house rules. Hearing that on an opera stage can be described as ambiguous.

Incidentally, the horned Rosalinde is the only one here who wears a mask. Masks have been seen enough in three years of Corona. The role-playing here is of a different nature – cross-gender. Huber had already played with the Pfister siblings in his earlier productions at the Komische Oper. Tobias Bonn alias Toni Pfister is here the party-mad Eisentstein, and Christoph Marti alias Ursli Pfister, who already played the Clivia, is now Rosalinde and brings the otherwise bright soprano here to guttural Zarah Leander depths.

Instead, Prince Orlofsky is now being played by a woman: Stephanie Dietrich can currently also be seen at the Neuköllner Oper in "Radioland" in a breeches role and wrings unusually pointed notes from this prince role. Nevertheless, the star of the evening is Gabriela Ryffel as the gorgeous parlor maid Adele. But the audience's favorite is Stefan Kurt, who is currently also celebrating triumphs on this stage in "La Cage aux Folles' ', jumping into several roles here - and after the break also acting as the clown. As a frog with a wonderful interlude that has absolutely nothing to do with Johann Strauss.

Great fun - for Strauss fans, Strauss skeptics - and operetta beginners

It Was wonderful fun. Although this guest performance from Winterthur, in its intimate form, would have fit on a smaller stage like the Bar Jeder Vernunft, where some of the actors are also at home. A pocket-sized operetta! This proves that austerity measures can have a positive effect. In any case, the well-known melodies sound bewitchingly fresh in this arrangement. And one is also rewarded that here, as is so often the case, singers do not only stand vainly on the ramp. No, the game is played properly here, the monkey is given sugar and wonderfully exaggerated.

This "Revenge of the Bat" is not just fun for Strauss fans. But especially for those for whom this operetta was always too kitschy, bourgeois or dusty. But even people who are more afraid of contact with this stage form could be introduced to operetta in this way. That was evident on the evening of the premiere on Friday: It wasn't just the usual opera-goers in the hall who applauded frenetically.