No wonder members of the audience demanded their money back, on the grounds of false prospectus, after enduring this travesty of a production, the worst distortion of a popular opera even from a German director. No wonder, as can be heard here, the public became restive and wholly disenchanted during the course of the incredible antics they were forced to watch. For Gérard Mortier’s last year as artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, this was not a succès de scandale, merely a scandal pure and simple.

Director Hans Neuenfels has entirely re-written the dialogue, extending it to include new characters, lots of psycho-babble and goodness knows what else. Frosch becomes a woman, who acts as a kind of chorus, wandering in and out of the action to no positive purpose: she is heckled for her Teutonic pretentiousness throughout the tedious evening. Orlofsky is taken by a pop singer, and the main characters become ludicrous and unbelievable puppets, required to make complete fools of themselves. Altogether, this is Fledermaus as horrible nightmare.

The additional material means the work is extended to almost three hours and there are unacceptably long stretches of speech between the musical numbers, themselves treated in a caricatured style. Orlofsky’s Ball starts as a disco and ends as a drug-riot, interrupted by gunfire, corpses in suitcases and a lot more of the same. Need I say more?

The musical side of things offers little compensation, apart from Malin Hartelius’s bright button of an Adele. Mireille Delunsch sings well enough, but her pleasing performance is virtually vitiated by the director’s whims. Most of the male singers are well past their best: Christoph Homberger’s gross and unattrative Eisenstein is wholly inadequate in vocal terms; Jerry Hadley sounds strained and sometimes sings out of tune as Alfred; Dale Duesing brings a worn baritone to the bass part of Frank; Olaf Bär just about survives as a cynical Falke. Marc Minkowski conducts a lively but rather too strict account of the score. It speaks badly for him that he would wish to be associated with the nonsense being enacted above him and his excellent orchestra. I wonder that ArtHaus Musik considered this appalling production was worth preserving for posterity.