Fledermaus
Siamsa Tíre, Tralee, Co Kerry
★★★★★
Irish National Opera opens 2025 with a touring production of Die Fledermaus, by Johann Strauss II. It’s a delight from start to finish.
That start – the Overture – enjoys a wide familiarity well beyond the rest of the operetta. Wonderfully carefree and good-humoured, it previews the famously infectious, earwigging dance tunes that punctuate the story.
If the genius of Strauss is that he sustains that lighthearted spirit for the two hours it takes the ridiculous plot to unfold, then INO’s success comes from producing a staging that constantly matches that spirit.
You have to leave certain expectations at the door. Starting with location. Forget Strauss the waltz king’s sumptuous 19th-century Viennese backdrop. Instead the designers Paul O’Mahony (sets) and Catherine Fay (costumes) re-create the interwar era, featuring art deco and judiciously cherry-picked allusions to early Hollywood, Weimar cabaret and the English drawingrooms of Noël Coward. German is gone also, the libretto delivered – often hilariously – in rhyming English.
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It’s a touring production, so something else that goes is scale: no vast ballroom filled with swirling waltzers. And it doesn’t matter. Under Stephanie Dufresne, the production’s movement director, the dancing – including much funny dancing, notably by men – and the movement and animation of the cast and chorus – just 13 in total – are among the most enjoyable features of the production.
Instead of a lavish, Straussian orchestra there are just nine players, including Richard Peirson, who directs from the piano, having condensed the original score into an inventive and faithful arrangement for chamber ensemble.
Peirson also periodically appears among the revellers to snatch a dance and a swig of champagne. He can easily do this because his players are situated not in a pit but in a small bandstand upstage, in full view. This not only integrates the musicians into the scenery but also adds to the intimate cabaret vibe.
So it’s the same story but, to both eye and ear, a different world, one concocted and brought to life by Davey Kelleher. The director’s vision embraces complexity in small spaces, including his enhanced role for the musicians, plus plenty of farcical melodramatics and laugh-out-loud physical humour. But, like Peirson, he remains faithful to the spirit of the original.
The cast must fire on all cylinders for any of this to come off. They do, and not only vocally. It’s a story where the women triumph and the men do silly things, and the excellent portrayals by Ben McAteer of the vengeful Falke, Aaron O’Hare as the ludicrously amorous Alfred and Seán Boylan as the jovial prison governor Frank are all shot through with expertly executed silliness.
In this they are led by the tenor Alex McKissick, as Eisenstein, Falke’s deserving victim, whose silliness is hilariously at odds with his matinee-idol looks and obvious accomplishment as a dancer.
The women have nearly all the best tunes. The musical highlights belong to Jade Phoenix as Rosalinde – Eisenstein’s wife – and Sarah Shine as her maid. Sharon Carty is clearly having a blast as the bored and androgynous Prince Orlofsky.
Irish National Opera’s production of Fledermaus is also at Cork Opera House on Tuesday, February 4th; Watergate Theatre, Kilkenny, on Thursday, February 6th; Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick, on Saturday, February 8th; Town Hall Theatre, Galway, on Tuesday, February 11th; Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo, on Thursday, February 13th; An Grianán, Letterkenny, Co Donegal, on Saturday, February 15th; Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Co Meath, on Tuesday, February 18th; An Táin Arts Centre, Dundalk, Co Louth, on Thursday, February 20th; and Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, on Saturday, February 22nd, and Sunday, February 23rd
