Merry is as Merry does, and this does Merry 100%
If you are going to do operetta at Glyndebourne, then do it in spades, seems to be the (wholly acceptable) watchword in Sussex.
Make the costumes and sets lavish, the music lush (London Philharmonic under John Wilson), the cast consummate professionals; then dial it to 11! That way it becomes an event, and not just an operetta.
The Merry Widow (the part performed by an excellent Danielle de Niese) is already well acknowledged as a ‘top-of-the-game’ operetta, with Franz Lehár’s clever music capturing fin-de-siecle Vienna in a Parisian setting. Perhaps one song is particularly famous (Vilya); the ‘Merry Widow Waltz’ and ‘You’ll find me at Maxim’s’ also get plays. Which is 3 more memorable numbers than many operettas.
The director, Cal McCrystal, has wrung every moment of comedy he can, and has endowed the talented Tom Edden as the comedy ‘factotum’ Njegus with a licence to break the 4th Wall and mug to his heart’s content. He even gets Germán Olvera to tumble down a full flight of stairs (but then he did also direct a Man with Two Governor’s at the National, so no real surprises there). This is funny, sassy, quite touching in parts. It has (tiny bits) of audience participation and get us synchronised clapping to a number or two (a first for me at Glyndebourne).
It’s the first production of The Merry Widow at Glyndebourne, but I suspect it will stay in the repertoire for some time (if only to amortize the costs of the costumes!).
Yesterday it was being filmed by the BBC – so hopefully anyone interested will be able to see the production we’ve just seen.