Fledermaus - Johann Strauss
1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2014

Western Australia Opera (1996), Opera Australia (1997, 2000, 2005, 2010), State Opera of SA (1999), Opera Queensland (2006), Houston Grand Opera (2014)

Here’s another production from the early-career vault. This widely travelled decades-old production of Johann Strauss’ operetta is one I still love and am proud of. I created it as AD of West Australian Opera in 1996 as a co-production with Opera Australia. It went to Sydney and Melbourne and every state company as well as OA, was televised for ABC in 1997, and is still available on Opera Australia’s streaming service. Several of Academy Award winner Angus Strathie’s spectacular costumes from this production are in the Australian Performing Arts Museum’s collection.

These images are from the Melbourne season in 2005 but there so were many brilliant casts and artists involved in this production between 1996 and 2014, among them Anthony Warlow and David Hobson as Eisenstein. Ghillian Sullivan, Antoinette Halloran and Wendy Bryn Harmer were all classy and very funny as Ros, while Amelia Farrugia, Natalie Jones and Laura Claycomb rocked Angus Strathie’s red party dress as Adele. For the world-weary Orlovsky, I was spoiled with luxury artists like Suzanne Johnston, Catherine Carby and Helen Medlyn.

At some point OA sold the scenery to a Canadian opera company for a production I wasn’t involved in, and I thought that was that. But to my surprise, Houston Grand Opera invited me to revive it in 2014, with Patrick Summers conducting a stellar cast including opera greats Susan Graham as Orlovsky and Anthony Dean Griffey as Alfredo. The Houston production was the beginning of a joyful creative partnership with the wonderful Danny Pelzig, choreographer and associate director on that production, who has remained a key collaborator on my productions in the US ever since.

Vital to the production’s appeal is a classic comic actor’s turn as a bellboy in Act 1, a drunken waiter in Act 2 and Frosch in Act 3. Among some brilliant actors in this role created by Geoff Kelso in 1996, I feel forever blessed to have worked with two true greats of Australian comedy, both now sadly gone from our stages forever - Paul Blackwell and Keith Robinson. So, while I’m farewelling great artists who have worked on this production, I pay tribute to the late, great Grant Smith (the original Eisenstein) and two conductors whose contribution to musical comedy in Australia is immense: Dobbs Franks, who conducted the TV version, and the wonderful Brian Stacey, who conducted the original production in 1996. Vale all those legends.