Composer: Franz Lehar; English libretto: Sheldon Harnick after Viktor Leon and Leo Stein. At: Lyric Opera of Chicago, 20 N. Wacker . Phone: 312-332-2244; $33-$207 . Runs through Jan. 16
Light and frothy operettas don't get much respect in the opera world. But getting an operetta's confection of creamy music and comedic wit just right is often more difficult than tapping the tragic tears of grand opera.
So sing your praises to the operetta gods that the Lyric Opera of Chicago weaves its magic so wonderfully on a new production of Lehar's The Merry Widow.
The Lyric was wise to employ Broadway and Chicago theater veteran Gary Griffin ( making his Lyric debut ) to helm the production. Instead of pushing the humor into over-exaggerated realms of camp, Griffin wisely plays things seriously and straight with Sheldon Harnick's elegant English-language libretto.
As the newly wealthy title widow Hanna Glawari, soprano Elizabeth Futral has chemistry and interpolated high notes to spare. Futral is paired marvelously with tenor Roger Honeywell's fine take on the rakish Count Danilow. With these two, we have a classically attractive pair of love-hate lovers who could easily step into the latest chick-flick romantic comedy.
The secondary trio of lovers is no slouch either. As Valencienne, the wife who dabbles with adultery, Ryan Center soprano Andriana Chuchman trills with flirtatious ease ( she also holds her own as a dancer in Act III, too ) . As her younger French lover, Camille de Rossillon, tenor Stephen Costello sings heavenly ( though he could show more emotion than his stock blank expression ) . As the blustery buffo husband Baron Zeta, Dale Travis is a comic delight throughout.
French conductor Emmanuel Villaume keeps the fine Lyric Opera orchestra lithe and bouncy through the proceedings. And in terms of spectacle, Mara Blumenfeld's luxurious belle epoch costumes more that fit the bill.
But where this Merry Widow suffers a few missteps is with Daniel Ostling's non-cohesive set design concepts and the timid chorography of Daniel Pelzig.
Ostling's steep raked stages seem to damper the romantic sweep of the waltzing couples in Act I and the can-can exuberance of the bouncy Grisette girls in Act III. But when the stage is flat for the brief bursts of Petrovenian folk dancing in Act II, Pelzig's efforts don't build to a show-stopping crescendo.
Each of Ostling's sets are fine ( particularly his Toulouse-Lautrec-inspired Maxim's restaurant ) , but there is nothing to link one location to another. Though I'm sure most people would think of valentines with Ostling's Act II silhouettes of statues and foliage, they unfortunately brought to my mind African-American artist Kara Walker's disturbing cutouts of antebellum subjugation.
And in terms of timing, the second intermission should be trimmed to make for a speedier conclusion.
But these are just minor quibbles considering how much of the Lyric's Merry Widow works so wondrously. The Lyric more than gives operetta a fair shake here.