Present prescriptive

“Director Christopher Alden destroys everything Strauss’s operetta stands for…. the work’s underbelly may be serious, but on stage ‘bitterness must turn to bliss in sweet forgetfulness’…. Die Fledermaus should be as much an exercise in escapism for us today as it was for its first audience in 1874…. Above all it needs to make us laugh and go out humming its tunes.” [Financial Times]