The Merry Widow – second ‘opening’ night 2 Jan 2018.
Dear Reader,
Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow
is rightly a classic of the musical stage which requires a soprano of the
greatest talents in both acting and voice.
Gladys Moncrieff, June Bronhill and Joan Sutherland were Australians who
mastered the role of Hannah Glawari (called Sonia in some English
productions). Danielle de Niese also has
what it takes but the microphone, which could have been used as subtle enhancement,
was over amplified and unpleasantly unnatural.
Ms de Niese dances superbly and is an outstanding personality on
stage. Her partner is Alexander Lewis,
star of opera and musical and son of popular Australia baritone Michael Lewis
and mezzo-soprano Patricia Price. He
also sings and acts well as the distant and reticent lover Danilo. Mr John Longmuir has a substantial tenor
voice but he is hardly the dashing figure required of Camille de Rosillon. Furthermore, the amplification distorted his
extraordinary high range so we will never know what he really sounded
like.
Despite handsome sets and
costumes, I could not recommend this production. Our national ‘opera’ company has sunk to new
depths, pushed along by a drive away from opera in favour of popular musicals
for weeks on end. They mix opera singers
with stars of musical theatre, a very difficult task considering the different
training and talents involved. This
immortal operetta, performed by opera singers in a relatively small theatre (1500
seats) with sub-titles, needs no amplification.
But it cannot be sung every night without the use of obvious, imperfect
and distorting amplification. It is a
sad irony that in the first production using the new staging and orchestra pit
acoustic improvements we are blasted with loud speakers, upsetting the fine
balance needed in an opera theatre. We
go to the opera to hear natural voices. The
orchestra sounded the same as usual to me but was sometimes overshadowed by the
amplified voices. The Viennese tunes seemed
unstoppable and Maestro Vanessa Scammell kept a traditional pace.
Some may like the new
Australian translation with its updated details, coarse and sexually explicit
references. On many occasions I noted
corny and awkward turns of phrase which replaced the charming poetry of the
traditional old English translations. An
exception might be the horsey song from Hanna Glawari’s youth which was
certainly an improvement on the ‘original’.
Mr Fleming is obviously a gifted poet but it was as if he had done this
enormous job in a hurry. I do not know
the original German or Hungarian but the spoken dialogue largely came across as
unnatural and unfunny. I recall one
point at which lovers were supposedly ‘embalmed in sweet perfume’ … were they
corpses? Did the company avoid some
copyright fees by using a new Australian translation? Or did it cost more?
There were a number of other
changes to the work if I’m not mistaken.
Lehar’s overture was omitted (it was written after the opening and is
often left out). The Grisettes de Paris are normally led by a
contralto ‘Madam’ called ZoZo but here the Widow herself danced with the Maxim
girls. Was this money saving again? It did seem incongruous.
Having seen ‘Hello Dolly’
recently in New York I know just how split-second timing, a professional
Broadway cast, balanced amplification from orchestra, soloists and chorus can
yield a tight and satisfying work. I
have never seen so many smiling faces as in the intermission in the Shubert
Theater at Times Square. I wish I could
say the same about the Sydney audience in Lehar’s Merry Widow.
Over many years during
January this ‘opera’ company has produced three or four high quality grand
operas, indirectly contributing to the Festival of Sydney. This year there will be 30 performances of
The Merry Widow, making a mockery of the new-found abilities of the opera
hall’s mechanical equipment to rapidly change sets from one opera to another
following six months of extensive renovations.
Are there parallels with the
current White House? Decades of
tradition have been thrown out in favour of an unproven change in direction. The fundamental constitution (Mission
Statement) of the organisation has been flouted until moves to change it to
allow the ‘opera’ company to perform virtually anything. Pantomimes?
Cabarets? High masses? Perhaps someone should write a book about
it.
PS – I was bowled over by
magnificent performance of Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea at Pinchgut Opera
in November – twice the quality at half the price! Nero’s court was replaced by tattooed
Brooklyn thugs – ‘Render unto Caesar …’.
