“’Forget the irreparable’, was the axiom by which the Habsburg monarchy approached its own demise. The despondency of those twilight years could but infiltrate the gaiety of operetta.” So wrote Claudio Magris about Die Fledermaus, a singularly unsettling work with its maelstrom of mistaken identities, dancing and drinking. In 1944, Die Fledermaus was one of the works performed at the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp where some of Europe’s best musicians were held captive by the Nazis. Inspired by this setting, Célie Pauthe draws on the salutary frivolity that brings the work to life and the force of collective resistance it inspired.

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