The conducting sparkles like a fountain of diamonds. There’s a superstar performance by young soprano Jennifer France as a naughty chambermaid. The score has hit tune after hit tune. So why doesn’t “Die Fledermaus” at Opera Holland Park hit the funny bone with the necessary thwack?The answer lies in the genre of operetta itself. The ingredients for any great production are surprise, slickness and silliness. It should all look like it happens spontaneously and effortlessly too: the plot of this particular operetta is about a man who puts his friend in a series of impossibly silly situations as revenge for a prank. And, of course, it should sound divine. Not much to ask, then.The magic of “Fledermaus” is so elusive that there’s no shame in the fact that this production doesn’t quite manage to conjure it up. It’s extremely rare to see a staging which has, to be honest. So it’s enough to let the individual highlights make their mark.These include John Rigby’s superb conducting, which is both rigorously accurate and full of Viennese fizz, and Jennifer France’s performance as Adele. When this flighty chambermaid (in disguise) wants to punish her master for insulting her, she uses her knee to deliver a blow to a particularly soft part of his anatomy, while delivering perfect spit-spot coloratura. It’s a beguiling mixture of charm and brutality, and utterly hilarious. Samantha Price makes a lively, luscious-sounding Prince Orlofsky too.The rest of the cast don’t quite reach the same heights, and some of the dialogue scenes (the production is performed in English) tend to drag. The set, by Romanian designer takis, creates a pleasant world of Art Deco glamour, but the set-changes take far too long.Martin Lloyd-Evans’s production rattles along, pressing some good comic buttons on the way and missing others. As an example of the latter, he ignores a theater law called “the rule of three” which states that a slapstick gag might get funnier if repeated three times, but will always crash and burn on the fourth. When a bungling Italian lover tries to enter his beloved’s bedroom window but falls off his ladder, it’s amusing. It’s even funnier the third time. The fourth time? Alas, it only proves the validity of the law.Never mind. We’ll continue to wait for the ideal production. In the meantime it’s still a great musical treat to enjoy the evergreen charms of this fabulous score.“Die Fledermaus” is in repertoire at Opera Holland Park until August 5www.operahollandpark.com
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