This season for Opera North revolves around the theme of “Before War, and After” to coincide with the centenary of the end of the First World War. The Merry Widow was first performed back in 1905 and is one of the most popular of the operettas composed by Franz Lehár and based on Leo Stein’s French book L’Attaché d’Ambassade.
The story revolves around the extremely wealthy and newly widowed Hanna Glawari (Katie Bird) who had married only a week before her extremely wealthy husband died. All of the money now controlled by Hanna was invested in Pontevedrian, a very small Balkan country with very little means of survival without this. Baron Mirko Zeta (Geoffrey Dolton) is the Ambassador of Pontevedro and fears that if she remarries this will immediately mean her new husband is in full control of her finances. With this in mind he attempts to find a more suitable candidate in his godson, Count Danilo Danilovitch (Quirijn de Lang) who is a drunken womanising bachelor who spends most of his time at the infamous Maxim’s in Paris – he is the standout performer in this production.
The plot predictably unfolds over the course of the evening with many of the characters having complicated relationships both past and present with others who are now potential suitors for Hanna, albeit with motives on the money. Danilo remains a distant character initially, although we soon realised that he was previously engaged to Hanna and this could only end up going his way later in the script.
This is my first encounter of The Merry Widow and although I had done some research on the plot I was not expecting the level of slapstick comedy and almost show tune numbers that were in evidence throughout. The plot was light to say the least and none of the characters were particularly memorable but I don’t think this is unusual in an operetta.
The whole production is conducted in English which made the subtitles on the screens on either side of the stage a little unnecessary for me – I found them a little distracting if anything given that it wasn’t hard to follow the dialogue on stage. I can very much understand the use of screens where opera is being sung in a different language but not for tonight’s performance.
Having said all of that, you can’t help but be impressed by the wonderful staging by Leslie Travers. The set was breath-taking, from the moment the curtain was raised to reveal the ballroom scene, to the recreation of Maxim’s in the third act – simply stunning. The period costumes too were extravagant and imposing, not just the lavish ball gowns but the attention to detail with jewellery made it so visually pleasing. The military costumes were just as glamorous and again the attention to detail was notable.
The story continues to unfold to a predicable but nevertheless satisfactory ending, but not before we navigate through illicit affairs, secret liaisons and mistaken identities. The cast do a very good job in keeping the entertainment factor high but special mention has to go to Quirijn de Lang who was stood out with his impeccable comic timing and mannerisms that John Cleese would be proud of. It was well worth seeing this production just for him.
I think many hard-core opera fan may have been disappointed with The Merry Widow but if you simply look at this production as a piece of theatre and entertainment then you would have enjoyed it just as much as I did. It is operetta, a genre that sits much closer to Musical Theatre and therefore is meant to be one dimensional and inconsequential which is exactly what Opera North’s production was.
Reviewer – John Fish
on – 15/11/18
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