Introducing... The Merry Widow

Read on, as opera expert Alexandra Coghlan explores this sparkling romantic comedy…

Need to know

Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow (1905) is pure theatrical pleasure: a fantasy of gilded ballrooms, sweeping gowns and overflowing champagne flutes, all set in the heady world of Belle Epoque Paris. Add an elaborate scheme, an enormous fortune, a pair of sparring former lovers and a whole chorus-line of can-can dancers, and you have a recipe for one of the most enduringly popular works in the repertoire: a cocktail of ravishing music, romance and madcap comedy.

Wealthy widow Hanna Glawari is the toast of Paris, the glamorous prize for every fortune-hunting man in the city – every man, that is, except Danilo, her former lover. Can Hanna find a way to turn the tables: to give her heart, while keeping her wealth and power?

Graceful, romantic and tender, flooded with dances and choruses and songs, The Merry Widow is an elegant fusion of worlds and eras: a piece rooted in the musical past with its eyes on the future. In Hanna and Danilo it offers something more than the usual pair of young lovers – this is happy-ever-after found only after several wrong turns and false starts, love for worse rather than better, if definitely richer rather than poorer…

Why not to miss this production

The Golden Age of Hollywood – all sweeping staircases and gorgeous gowns – inspires this sumptuous new 1900s staging by award-winning West End director Cal McCrystal (physical comedy consultant and director for One Man, Two Guvnors and Paddington 2). McCrystal brings his signature brand of exhilarating comedy and irrepressible energy to a dazzling show full of colour and movement that never pauses for breath: whirling you around the dance-floors and boudoirs of Belle Époque Paris with a song on its lips, a spring in its step, and a scandalous suggestion of what to do once the lights go down…

A brand-new English translation by Stephen Plaice and Marcia Bellamy (In the Market for Love) puts comedy front and centre, updating a much-loved period piece for a new era. And there will also be surprises in the score: bringing together all the show’s classic numbers with music Lehár later added to a piece with a long and ever-evolving life.

A great moment to look out for

The Merry Widow Waltz (‘Lippen Schweigen’) is pure musical romance. We’ve already heard orchestral pre-echoes back in Act II, so by the time the big duet and long-awaited declaration of love between will-they-won’t-they lovers Hanna and Danilo finally arrives in Act III it has a glorious inevitability and familiarity. Aching with sweetness, calm and tender, with just a hint of a lilt to it – it’s carried along on a bed of strings, soft as whipped cream, with woodwind sprinkled on top just to add glisten and gleam.

Cast and creative team

Soprano Danielle de Niese, a ‘dazzling’ (Sydney Morning Herald) and ‘beguiling’ (Australian Arts Review) Hanna Glawari for Opera Australia, stars in the title role. She’s joined by charismatic Mexican baritone Germán Olvera (a ‘tremendous’ Count in 2022’s Figaro, according to the Telegraph) as Danilo – the one who got away. Veteran star Thomas Allen is worldly-wise Baron Zeta, with soprano Soraya Mafi (‘scintillating’ – Bachtrack as Morgana in 2022’s Alcina and most recently as Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) as his flirtatious young wife Valencienne.

‘Dazzling’ (The Times) conductor John Wilson returns to Glyndebourne following 2019’s Cendrillon where he ‘worked miracles in the pit’ (Bachtrack) for another fairytale opera-romance. He’ll conduct a brand-new English translation of The Merry Widow by Stephen Plaice and Marcia Bellamy, directed by Cal McCrystal. And there’s choreography by Olivier-nominated Carrie-Anne Ingrouille, known for her work on Six and Hamilton.

To find out more about production support for Festival 2024 click here
or contact our Director of Development, Helen McCarthy for an informal chat:
call 01273 815 032 or email helen.mccarthy@glyndebourne.com