Only a miserable so-and-so could find fault with WNO's new production of Die Fledermaus, which is true to the spirit of the original in being all fun and froth.

The operetta by Johann Strauss the Younger is of its time and place - 1870s Vienna. Tinkering with it to point up some 'message' would be like making sure everyone at a pantomime knew the Dame was really a bloke.

Everything is pitched just so, from Deirdre Clancy's gorgeous costumes and Tim Reed's stylish set to the casting of the great Desmond Barrit in the spoken part of Frosch, the drunken jailer.

Barrit seems to turn his introductory appearance at the start of act three into an improvised event. It's a hoot.

The Viennese conductor Thomas Rosner everywhere insists that the orchestra, too, is attending the party. The chorus are party animals par excellence.

WNO protegé Joanne Boag as the subverting parlour-maid Adele sings and acts her heart out so much that towards the end the voice is endearingly under strain.

Nuccia Focile as Rosalinde charms her way through the madcap events, even in a slightly underwhelming Csardas, nostalgic counterpart of the Merry Widow's Vilja song.

Paul Charles Clarke is a zany Alfred, Mark Stone the perfect Eisenstein, Alan Opie a bumbling prison governor and David Stout a cunning Falke (the ‘Bat’, transformed at the end). Helen Lepalaan as Orlofsky delivers her Champagne Song with a telling strain of world-weariness.

Director John Copley ensures that the bubbles stay at the top of the glass without brimming over into vulgar excess. My ‘frothometer’ registered maximum throughout.

The presence of Copley, former director of productions at the Royal Opera House, at the head of a WNO production after a gap of more than ten years is more than welcome.The company's last stab at Die Fledermaus, directed by the controversial Spaniard Calixto Bieito, was an only slightly mitigated disaster, and Copley was never going to search for hidden meanings.

Viennese operetta's only meaning is that it's a fantasy about the rich (Orlofsky's richer than most) for the rich or the reasonably wealthy. In 1870s Vienna, of course, these people were only ever upwardly mobile and the financial crash served to concentrate minds on distributing one's wealth where it couldn't be de-valued. Everything else was play, to the accompaniment of Strauss's irresistible music.