The merry widow : operette / Lehár ; Helmut Lohner, stage director ; Anton Reitzenstein, director.

[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], [2004]

©2004

1 online resource (1 video file (2 hr., 15 min., 7 sec.)) : sound, color

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Sung in German.

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Pleasure for the sake of pleasure. The Merry Widow blends skillfully the elements that made the success of the genre of the operetta: lightheartedness, cheekiness, slapsticks of every kind; elements brought to the fore with brio by the remarkable production of Helmut Lohner, and the stunning Dagmar Schellenberger in the role of Hanna Glawari. Against the French Grand Opera ridden with deadly serious plots and pompous bombast, the operetta emerged as an anti-intellectual genre mocking the academic codes set forth by the Meyerbeer-Scribe couple. In this respect, no one defines better the operetta than the witty Saint-Saëns: "the operetta is an opera-comique's daughter that went bad, but this kind of girls are usually not deprived of charm." And indeed, The Merry Widow, created in Vienna in 1905, was performed more than 20,000 times over the four following years! A hint of nostalgia arises in watching Lehar's masterwork. Swirling waltz, dizzying celebrations remind us of the final splendor of the 19th century, of the Belle Époque's exuberance.

Medici.tv classical music. OCLC KB.

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German

September 18, 2023

Dagmar Schellenberger (Hanna Glawari) ; Rodney Gilfrey (Graf Danilo) ; Ute Gfrerer (Valencienne) ; Rudolf A. Hartmann (Baron Mirko Zeta) ; Piotr Beczala (Camille de Rosillon) ; Herbert Prikopa (Njegus) ; Zurich Opera Chorus ; Zurich Opera House Orchestra ; Franz Welser-Möst, conductor.