Sensational Duchy Opera’s Die Fledermaus

Hilarious comedy, fabulous song, and the magic of Viennese waltzes with Strauss’s intoxicating Die Fledermaus, performed in English by Duchy Opera.

The glamour and sparkle of a dazzling Vienna, complete with masked ball, arrives in Falmouth when Duchy Opera opens its summer season with Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, otherwise known as the Flying Fox.

Strauss’s hypnotic waltz music is famous throughout the world, but this is a wholly Cornish triumph, showcasing the county’s top musical talent, from directors to translator and soloists.

Award-winning music director Patrick Bailey is a veteran of London and Europe’s top opera venues. He picked up the prestigious Evening Standard award for Best Musical for his conducting of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene. As music director for The Opera Group, he has conducted numerous productions and tours, appearing at the Royal Opera House and the Bregenz Festival in Austria.

The June production includes popular numbers such as “The Champagne Chorus”, “Oh What a Night” and “Adele’s Laughing Song”, all sung in English. A comedy of errors, peopled by larger-than-life characters, it follows their hilarious mishaps, deceits, infidelities, disguises, and mistaken identities.

Stage director, Gillian Geer, said: “The story is hilarious. No one is who they seem. The entire plot is an act of revenge – a ridiculous practical joke.”

Patrick is adapting Strauss’s orchestral score for a crack team of Cornish musicians to debut at Falmouth.

Duchy Opera will sing a modern translation by Bill Bankes-Jones, who lives in Cornwall, and was originally commissioned for English Touring Opera.

Gillian said: “It will be a sparkling production. We are using traditional costumes, brightly-coloured satins and silks. There will be a masked ball – glamorous and stunningly beautiful.”

Strauss developed his new style of popular operetta for a wealthy, late 19th century Vienna, but one partying under a cloud. Revolution and war threatened.

People wanted an escape, which Strauss provided with his enduring waltzes, the most famous of which is the Blue Danube.