Say what you like about Barrie Kosky’s new production of Die Fledermaus, but it’s not short of Fledermice. Right from the start, they fill the stage: an entire corps de ballet of bats, swirling, dancing and pursuing a hapless Eisenstein through the streets of what might be a stage set, or a rapidly dissolving dream, but is nonetheless, unmistakably, Vienna. Meanwhile, in the pit, Vladimir Jurowski unfolds the Overture with an insouciant mélange of archness and sweetness, strutting along with the ‘elastic step’ that Joseph Roth attributed to the Emperor Franz Josef. It’s inventive; it’s mischievous. And yet right from the off, it just feels right.

Kosky is in his element. Whatever your views on his approach to mainstream repertoire, few living directors have thought more carefully about Central European operetta, or done more to inject it with new life. A Kosky Fledermaus was always going to be an exciting proposition, but what struck me time and again was just how committed he is to the form as a living entertainment, and how even his most counterintuitive decisions are rooted in a deep understanding of the genre. (That extends to a respect for the spoken text, so often cut or rewritten but handled by Kosky with briskness and flair.)

So you might, if you’re inclined, take exception to Max Pollak’s virtuoso beatboxing as Frosch. But this role has always been an invitation to break the fourth wall, and in fact Pollak trained at the Theater an der Wien. It doesn’t get more authentic than that. Again, casting the countertenor Andrew Watts as Orlofsky – and presenting him as a flamboyant drag queen – is entirely in the tradition of the role, and works gloriously, both musically and in terms of characterisation. Kosky sees Orlofsky’s party not as the customary white-tie gala but as an eye-popping countercultural happening. Champagne flows in torrents, but it’s swigged rather than sipped, and bottles litter the floor.

That central act, it’s true, feels very close to the Weimar cabaret world of Kosky’s previous operetta productions, but the genius of this staging lies in the way it tweaks at our expectations without descending into distortion or mockery. Rebecca Ringst’s colourful set designs give us a recognisable, candy-box Vienna. At any moment, though, they can peel away, dissolve in shimmers or rearrange themselves into surreal new patterns. For Kosky, clearly, it’s not just the guests chez Orlofsky who are wearing masks. The city, its culture and operetta itself are all brilliant disguises behind which real emotion can be indulged, or simply laughed away. Few Fledermauses so invite, and repay, repeat viewing.

Musically: well, I’ve already hinted at the glories of Jurowski’s conducting – ideally paced, luminous without being saccharine and capable of generating a quite irresistible Schwung when the waltz rhythms kick in. The Bavarian players slide saucily up to their top notes, and then flick them away. Katharina Konradi, as Adele, is a soubrette on supercharge; fearsomely assured in her coloratura and a smiling, flirtatious spirit of pure sensual mischief throughout the show.

It wouldn’t be strictly fair to say that Konradi upstages Diana Damrau’s Rosalinde – the spectacular choreography and faintly dominatrix-like manner with which she delivers her grand Act 2 csárdás makes that impossible – though Damrau doesn’t always feel quite as sure-footed vocally. But she certainly makes a seductive Frau Eisenstein, melting with pleasure and licking dessert from her fingers as she dines with Alfred (Sean Panikkar).

The men, meanwhile, are uniformly idiomatic, engaging singers and accomplished comic actors, too. As Frank, Martin Winkler submits to repeated humiliations (we’re talking nipple-tassles) with absolute aplomb and a fine, oaky voice. Markus Brück (Falke) wears his melodies with style and Georg Nigl (as Eisenstein) can certainly turn on the charm, as well as blustering with thunderous force in the final scene.

By then, with six separate Frosches (or, as the subtitles refer to them, ‘Frogs’) on stage and the set stripped back to the bare cage of Frank’s jail, Kosky is walking a very fine line between genuine (and painful) feeling and the logic of pure farce. But he pulls it off like the showman he is, and it all ends – as it absolutely should – in kisses, forgiveness and even more champagne. Like I say: he gets it.