Even though I am not the biggest fan of operettas, I decided to go and see Franz Lehar’s “The Merry Widow” in the Helsinki Conservatory – if only to support them. This is perhaps one of the best-known operettas in the world and its tunes are known to most of us – even when you don’t quite remember their origin.
“The Merry
Widow” tells about a young and rich widow Hanna Glawari and how many men try
lure her back to the bliss of married life. Though, most of them are motivated
by money, not love. However, after a lot of different twists and turns the true
love in the form of Count Danio Danilowitsch is found.
The
Saturday afternoon went smoothly together with Lehar’s music, even though the
production itself was not superb. The director, Markku Nenonen, had made rather
a dull version of the operetta and for some reason the acoustics in the concert
hall was not very good and the voices sort of disappeared somewhere. Usually,
the acoustics is quite good in the Helsinki Conservatory’s concert hall, so I
do not quite know what happened during this operetta. But perhaps, at least partly
due to this acoustics problem, I was not that impressed by the soloists. This
time my favourite turned out to be Jere Hölttä, who sang the role of Count
Danilo. The pushed his high notes, but at least his acting style suited the
light operetta perfectly.
Helsinki
Concordia orchestra played quite well, though they also suffered from the same
acoustics issues.
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