Reviews

The Merry Widow or Die Lustige Witwe is one of the world’s most beloved comic operettas. Performed in three acts with the score by Franz Lehár (libretto in German by Viktor Léon and Leo Stein), it premiered on December 30, 1905.

Hanna Glavari is a wealthy young widow who Baron Zeta would prefer to marry a Pontevedrian, not a Frenchman, to keep her money in the country. The obvious choice is Count Danilo, but there is a problem. They are exes, and he is too proud to marry her because of her fortune.

Since its premiere by the Melbourne Theatre Company in June 2015, this stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic sixties chase-movie has successfully played around the world in Canada and the UK. An obvious crowd-pleaser, Carolyn Burns’ treatment sticks very close to Ernest Lehman’s screenplay (perhaps a little too close) in putting this mistaken identity spy escapade on stage.

This is as sophisticated a performance of this musical as you could ever hope to see at close quarters.

The standards were so high that it felt like you were watching Opera Australia rather than an Independent Theatre production.

Aspects of Love is already opera-like in the sense that it is sung through. The generous sized cast of sixteen and orchestra of ten squeezed onto the Hayes Theatre stage added to the feeling of abundance.

The musical is Andrew Lloyd Webber at his most florid.

Not subtle, this play starts with a couple in congress, the woman wresting dominance from her partner while renegotiating the language of sex. Later another woman presents her sexual availability and naked body as a consumable alongside grocery items, the shop staff more horrified by her lack of attractiveness than her nakedness.