Lehar: The Merry Widow Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Lehar: The Merry Widow Blu-ray Movie Review

Possibly the most popular operetta of all time gets a lavish production by the San Francisco Opera.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 9, 2010

The vagaries of the minds of censors are sometimes hard to fathom. Cole Porter’s 1932 musical The Gay Divorce had to be renamed The Gay Divorcee when it was transferred to film by RKO two years later in 1934. Some wag decided that divorce itself could not be gay, but apparently one of the participants could be. Strangely also in 1934, MGM released one of the film versions of Franz Lehár’s beloved operetta The Merry Widow without having to change its title. Evidently merriment after the death of one’s spouse is more politically correct than the happy dissolution of a marriage. Who knew? If operetta is frequently seen by high culture snobs as the frankly slightly slutty little sister of “real” opera, its appeal to the masses can’t be denied and the genre in fact paved the way for today’s musical comedies. With (heaven forfend) tunes that frequently hew fairly close to the 32 bar standard of popular songs, with recits often taking the part of the bridge, and lighter, fluffier subject matter, operettas are certainly not going to weigh anyone down with portentous plotlines and deep psychological insight. They are, however, probably going to entertain people, as odd an idea as that may seem, especially to the newer generation of opera directors, many of whom seem hell bent on alienating their audiences with bizarre stagings of classic works. And while The Merry Widow may indeed follow the time honored operetta tradition of lighter than air melodies and often surface-only characters, it actually hides an actual deep thought or two underneath its shiny façade.

Is this the beginning of a forbidden love affair?

Franz Lehár was Hungarian by birth, and though a talent as recondite as Antonin Dvorák recognized Lehár’s compositional gifts early in Franz’s life and encouraged the young man to pursue “serious” music writing, Lehár’s reputation rests largely on his operettas, of which The Merry Widow has become the best known and most popular. A neat little meditation on fidelity and the dual lures of money versus love, The Merry Widow has a patently Viennese quality to both its music and its libretto, by Viktor Léon and Leo Stein (based on a mid-19th century comedic play). The Grand Duchy of Pontevedro has undergone trying financial times (sound familiar?), and is desperately in need of its own “stimulus bill,” which arrives in the form of Anna (sometimes transliterated as Hanna) Glawari (Yvonne Kenny), the titular heroine who has inherited several tens of millions of dollars from her late husband. The Parisian ambassador from Pontevedro, Baron Zeta (Carlo Hartmann) wants to make sure Anna’s new husband is from Pontevedro, in order to keep her funds in his destitute country. He hatches a semi-brilliant plan which of course immediately misfires when Anna’s long ago lover Danilo (Bo Skovhus) enters the picture. Playing out against these farcical elements are some tangential subplots including mistaken identities and a misunderstanding involving the Baron’s wife, Valencienne (Angelika Kirchschlager), who is wrongly suspected of having an affair.

This is all pretty typical operetta stuff, prettied up with Lehár’s colorful music, but also given some at least passing depth by Léon and Stein’s rather wise libretto. The relationship between Anna and Danilo actually feels surprisingly real throughout the piece, as Danilo refuses to propose to a woman whom countless others are pursuing simply because of her money, and Danilo doesn’t want to be counted among them in that way. In fact, Anna’s attempts to get Danilo to simply admit he still loves her, despite her newfound riches, is at the core of this little soufflé, which also has the richness of the best Viennese pastries.

San Francisco Opera has consistently mounted some of the most interesting and opulent productions of various pieces in recent years. This Merry Widow is no exception, and was in fact Lotli Mansouri’s last production with the company in his role as General Director, though it does bear the rather unmistakable imprint of (as strange as this sounds) Gower Champion’s work on the iconic Jerry Herman musical Hello, Dolly!. When Anna enters the Parisian ball in a flowing red gown, she’s greeted by a swarm of tuxedoed gents who proffer their arms in a tableaux set on rising stairs, and one almost expects Satchmo to appear with his omnipresent handkerchief. This is nonetheless a very appealing production, set mostly in tones of black and white, with Anna’s glorious gowns about the only real color to be seen. This particular production also includes dialogue interpolations written by none other than Wendy Wasserstein, who has added a sometimes anachronistic modern voice to the proceedings (the Baron complains about “rolling blackouts,” for instance, something that elicits a laugh from the California audience but which may leave Lehár purists fuming). There’s also an addition of a ballet at Maxim’s during Act III that works well with the music.

Both Kenny and Skovhus make a very appealing and thankfully mature pair of lovers, and both are in full and fulsome voice throughout the three acts of The Merry Widow. If some of the comedy bits of the Baron and his cohorts fall a little flat, over all the evening proceeds with just the right amount of zest and fun, with a hint of melancholy and nostalgia thrown in for good measure. Famed conductor Erich Kunzel brings spark and dash to the orchestral accompaniment. Lehár does not do overly busy choral arrangements, and in fact the ensemble as well as the principals frequently sing in unison, but vocally this is a top notch performance that offers both an attractive lightness of technique with a certain emotional gravitas that puts the lie to the presupposition that operetta is nothing more than “tarted up” opera.

Lehar: The Merry Widow Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

OpusArte brings us The Merry Widow with their usual AVC encoded 1080i 1.78:1 presentation. This is a generally good looking live performance that may bother some videophiles because of its emphasis on black and white tones, with a relative dearth of color, especially in Act I. Anna's gorgeous gowns do pop nicely, but I found the flesh tones to be slightly on the yellow side. Black levels are excellent, with the men's dark waistcoats clearly delineated against the usually black backgrounds, and contrast is well balanced throughout the presentation. No artifacting of any kind was noticed, and fine detail is quite good. Act II and Act III do spice things up nicely in terms of palette, with some appealing blues, greens and turqoises, as well as some wonderfully saturated reds in the Can-Can dancers' dresses, that help lend a little luster to the proceedings. Just don't expect almost three hours of eye popping color in this piece.

Lehar: The Merry Widow Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I'm not quite sure I've ever had a DTS-HD MA 4.0 mix to deal with before, but the results here are quite pleasing as long as you're not bothered by a relative paucity of knock your socks off surround activity. In fact most of the voices seem anchored pretty steadily to the front center channel, though occasionally directionality will come into play more noticeably. What really shines here is the brilliant fidelity, which is clear as a bell and supports both Kenny and Skovhus' voices admirably. The orchestra also sounds nicely burnished, with great reproduction of all frequency ranges. Balance is very occasionally an issue here in both the 4.0 and LPCM 2.0 fold down, with voices just so slightly buried underneath the orchestral masses. In fact I would have loved for there to have been optional English subtitles, even though The Merry Widow is sung here in English, just so I could have deciphered the occasional lost lyric. But over all this is a very pleasing and well recorded soundtrack.

Lehar: The Merry Widow Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

An above average featurette called Impressions (20:20) offers Kenny, Mansouri and others in the cast and crew giving some insight into the unexpected depths of this supposedly frothy piece. Also on tap are an illustrated synopsis (which runs a whopping eleven minutes, plus, longer than even Wagnerian synopses on other Blu-rays I've reviewed, which I found somewhat humorous), as well as a cast gallery. The insert booklet has the expected essay.

Lehar: The Merry Widow Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Some may be singing "Hello, Anna!" to Jerry Herman's unforgettable Dolly title tune when they see this staging, but The Merry Widow, like Dolly Levi, is a woman who "arranges things." It takes her a while to get to her happy ending with Danilo, but in this opulently staged production, getting there is half the fun.