Mainly Opera and Ballet
The first three days of the Buxton featured three very different operas: Franz Lehar’s Merry Widow on the opening night, followed by Verdi’s La Traviata and Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula. Each in its own way typifying three time periods, but the main attraction for me was the appearance of Polish-American coloratura soprano Alexandra Nowakowski as …
The delightful music and witty dialogue of this genteel musical has a cutting edge of impropriety. In its new production at Glyndebourne, Merry Widow is true to the original while adapting the German libretto to English with dialogue presenting issues of current concern in the twenty-first century — see my review in The Article.
The opening night of this new production lacked the snap, crackle and pop of Lehár’s music. Yet when the conductor left the orchestra pit to join in the curtain calls, the orchestra continued under a more energetic conductor, and the music suddenly showed the pizzazz it had lacked earlier. On the other hand, Max Webster’s production …
