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Performing Arts

You say operetta, and I say opera

The MET stages a silly romance in Lehar’s ‘The Merry Widow’
Susan Stroman’s new production of Lehar’s “The Merry Widow,” with Renée Fleming as Hanna and Nathan Gunn as Danilo, will be transmitted as part of The MET: Live in HD series Saturday at Fort Lewis College.

At 11 a.m. Saturday, the august Metropolitan Opera bravely will transmit Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow” to the world.

A warning: If you attend The MET Live in HD at Fort Lewis College, you will be slumming.

Ah, yes, the snob factor.

A century ago, “The Merry Widow” was considered “just an operetta,” something for popular, not elite taste. When it premiered in 1905, it turned out to be a huge success. But old, rigid hierarchies prevailed. Tragic opera headed the A-list, and all other categories fell below. The form that combined music and – ugh – spoken dialogue sat at the bottom.

The opera world is one of the last fortresses to hang on to stiff categories of rank and status. But all that is crumbling as operettas by Lehár, Smetana, Johann Strauss and the king of them all, Jacques Offenbach, have packed grand opera’s traditional venues. Not long ago operettas had to have performance halls of their own. Vienna’s Volksoper and Staatsoper still thrive, although they’ve installed swinging doors.

Opera houses are beginning to stage even Broadway musicals as legitimate offerings. Witness the 2012 success of “South Pacific” in Sydney with operatic baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes following in the footsteps of Giorgio Tozzi, Paulo Szot and the original Emile, Ezio Pinza.

“The Merry Widow” made its world premiere in Vienna on Dec. 30, 1905, and became the composer’s career-changing work. It made the two dozen or more operettas that followed fade in comparison.

Only once in its inimitable history has the Metropolitan Opera staged the fluffy tale of renewed romance, and that was a wink ago – 2000. Now general manager Peter Gelb has called upon veteran Broadway choreographer and director Susan Stroman to recreate the work for a modern audience.

Stroman, whose credits include the saucy and near blasphemous wonder, “The Producers,” both film and stage versions, and Gershwin’s “Crazy for You,” might have been expected to punch up “Widow” into the 21st century. Instead, she’s danced down a traditional path, tossing in more dancing, including a waltz during the overture, folk dances and a can-can in Act III at Maxim’s. But otherwise, traditionalists will love the Art Nouveau costuming and sets, the silly romance about a beautiful and wealthy widow, her handsome former lover and the other tangled love knots.

Since operettas distinguished themselves from the beginning by mixing lots of spoken dialogue with music, the form separated itself from grand, through-sung opera. That will be welcomed by fans of the American musical, but reviews of the Met production single out gobs of dialogue as a significant problem.

The Metropolitan Opera House seats 3,800 people, a gargantuan hall. As New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini said after the opening night gala on New Year’s Eve, it’s “a cavernous place for a genre that relies on dialogue.”

Spoken and sung in English for this production, “Merry Widow” employs body microphones. But they are used only for the spoken word, a first for the Met. Sounds like a stage manager’s nightmare, turning microphones on and off for singing or speech.

The HD audience may or may not sense the difference. In fact, it may be preferable – if technical glitches vanish. We’ll have to see.

Casting couldn’t be better with soprano Renee Fleming as Hanna Glawari, baritone Nathan Gunn as Danilo, Broadway’s stunning soprano Kelli O’Hara as Valencienne and Met tenor Alek Shrader as Camille.

Each of the three acts is built around a party at an embassy, ball, a house and a favorite Parisian haunt, Maxim’s Restaurant.

Running time is about three hours with two intermissions.

jreynolds@durangoherald.com. Judith Reynolds is an art historian, arts journalist and Durango writer.

If you go

The MET: Live in HD transmission of “The Merry Widow” will take place at 10:55 a.m. Saturday in the Vallecito Room of the FLC Student Union Building, 1000 Rim Drive. Visit www.durangoconcerts.com for tickets or more information.



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