Die Fledermaus

Many a sad experience at Sadler's Wells and the Colisseum have taught me to beware of opera in English - particularly operetta, whose verbal wit translates so badly that one often has the impression of Gilbert and Sullivan, but with something gone dreadfully wrong. Indeed, my last English Fledermaus convinced me that "it really doesn't matter what language opera is sung in, providing you can't understand it". What to make then, of a production with surtitles but sung by a cast for whom English is not a first or second language (that's usually Russian), but a very imperfectly grasped third?

Strangely enough, the whole thing worked like a bomb. Ellen Kent's own translation of this "old Russian version" was literate, amusing, and avoided the usual excruciating political jokes. Prince Orlovsky's Act II party was a triumph, with the Prince frequently singing in Russian, and Rosalinde - now a Romanian rather than Hungarian countess - also singing in her native language. This was indeed Vienna, but the Vienna of the great Treaty 50 years earlier, when Russia and Eastern Europe suddenly became major players, and the representatives of the Great Powers waltzed the night away.

The whole cast abetted this nostalgic vision. Irina Vinogradova (pictured), a moving Li in Turandot here two years ago, acted superbly as Rosalinde, almost (not quite) out-sung by Maria Tonina's Adle. Ruslan Zinevych is really too boyish a figure for Eisenstein - perhaps he should have changed places with Ruslan Pacatovici, splendid as the Italian tenor Alfredo. Zarui Vardanean as Prince Orlovsky (great to see a mezzo rather than the increasingly common - and wrong - tenor) nearly stole the show, but that was done decisively by the Prince's mystery guest - Pudsey, the charming injured bear (and, it turned out, excellent dancer) from the charity BBC Children in Need.