SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Johann Strauss II,  Die Fledermaus:  Premiere, Soloists, The Royal Swedish Opera Chorus and Orchestra / Stefan Solyom, Stockholm, 30.1.2010  (GF)

Sets – Lars Östbergh
Costumes – Ann-Margret Fyregård
Lighting – Hans-Åke Sjöquist
Choreography – Petter Jacobsson and Thomas Caley
Direction – Ann-Margret Pettersson

Cast:
 

Gabriel von Eisenstein – Carl Johan “Loa“ Falkman
Rosalinda, his wife – Lena Nordin
Frank, prison governor – Marcus Jupither
Prince Orlofsky – Jan Malmsjö
Alfred – Michael Weinius
Doctor Falke – Anders Larsson
Blind, lawyer – Magnus Kyhle
Adèle, chamber maid – Kerstin Avemo
Ida, her sister – Emilia Feldt
Frosch, jailer – Helge Skoog

Dancers from the Royal Ballet – Sophie Benoit and Filip Veverka
Students from the Royal Swedish Ballet School


A bitterly cold winter, the coldest for more than twenty years, has struck Scandinavia and held the inhabitants in an iron grip. Thus it was pleasant to leave, snow and ice for a while and seat oneself in the old Royal Opera House, where set designer Lars Östbergh, suitably enough, conjured up the Carlton Hotel in Cannes on the French Riviera, and transported us to the roaring 1920s. Even before the curtain rises we are reminded of lazy days on the beach by a uniformed hotel piccolo sitting in a sun chair in front of a screen on which champagne bubbles are rising from the floor. The champagne, we recollect, is the central character in this sparkling comedy and the one to blame for all the complications. Ann-Margret Pettersson has created an elegant, spirited and quick-witted comedy from the well-known ingredients and for once there is no need to search hidden messages and equivocality. This is first-class entertainment. Period!

Normally we glimpse, at best, the back of the conductor, but here, during the overture, we are facing him and large parts of the Royal Orchestra as well, on the large screen. It’s like watching one of those transmissions from the MET. Stefan Solyom’s impassioned treatment of this marvellous music became even more tangible when we could follow his movements and facial expressions in close-up.

The cast is a fine one with some of the most experienced singing-actors, amended by two of Sweden’s foremost actors as Prince Orlofsky and Frosch. Jan Malmsjö is famous as serious actor, TV entertainer, popular singer and operetta and musical artist since more than fifty years. His Prince was a rather lifelike portrait of the famous Russian choreographer Sergei Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes were highly fashionable in the twenties. Even his homosexual leaning was candidly exposed. Malmsjö’s timing and surefooted musicality made him a stunning Orlofsky/Diaghilev. Helge Skoog’s Frosch made his entrance through the first row of the auditorium and he took the opportunity to castigate the authorities for the parsimonious funds to the Royal Opera House which is in sore need of renovation. Frosh is traditionally highly inebriated, but not so Helge Skoog’s. There are new times now, he said, and today we have to communicate, even inter-act. He treated the audience as a group of prisoners and even had us sing a new text of the famous Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, which in Swedish is generally known as the Prisoners’ Chorus. A ‘sing-along’ he called it but in this prison setting it became ‘sing-sing-along’.

Lena Nordin’s Rosalinda was uncommonly willing and active in her relation to Alfred and the latter, brilliantly sung by Michael Weinius, instead of dining with Rosalinda had a spectacular bath with plenty of foam. ‘Loa’ Falkman, another highly versatile entertainer and actor but deeply rooted in opera – he was Falstaff in Stockholm two years ago (see review) – was cut out for Eisenstein and his voice has retained its thrill. Marcus Jupither, with one of the most thunderous voices around, was a jovial Frank and was in sharp contrast, visually, to Kerstin Avemo’s scintillating Adèle. As the schemer of ‘The Revenge of the Bat’ Anders Larsson had adopted hair-style and posture that reminded me of another famous Swedish actor, Per Oscarsson and his warm baritone was ideally suited to, in my opinion, the most beautiful melody of all in this operetta, Brüderlein in the big ensemble in act II. Magnus Kyhle made much of little with his portrait of the lawyer, Blind.

The ballet in act II was not to music by Strauss but a movement from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherazade – in honour of Diaghilev, no doubt. It was beautifully and skilfully executed but maybe a bit too long. It prolonged the already long act with another fifteen minutes.

International visitors to Stockholm should be aware of the fact that the operetta is sung in Swedish and that there are no surtitles in English, which otherwise is the norm in the Nordic opera houses, including the Baltic operas in Tallinn and Riga. I do hope that this will change. But the high spirits and the playing and singing of all concerned come across anyway and it’s a pleasure to see a classic operetta with all the ingredients as they should be. Traditional? Of course – and that’s the way many of us want it.

Göran Forsling