Opera Australia back on stage with classic romcom The Merry Widow

Graeme Murphy’s production of the Viennese operetta provides beautiful melodies, gorgeous costumes and inventive choreography.

Julie Lea Goodwin and cast in The Merry Widow, at the Sydney Opera House.

The opening night of Opera Australia’s COVID-era summer season was The Merry Widow, but it looked more like A Masked Ball. Some guests had dressed for the occasion, the gentlemen in black tie and the ladies in gowns or cocktail dresses. But everyone arriving at the Joan Sutherland Theatre was required to wear a face mask, and to keep them on throughout the performance. Social distancing meant that the auditorium was less than full, and the reduced capacity somewhat dampened the atmosphere, despite everyone’s efforts to be merry. Opening nights usually have a lot more buzz.

Several people noted that Sydney is one of the few places in the world able to have an opera season at all. A quick survey of the major houses in the Northern Hemisphere — the Royal Opera in London, Vienna’s Staatsoper, the Metropolitan in New York, all closed — confirms this to be true. For Opera Australia, the current season of The Merry Widow is the first return to live performance since the lockdown in March last year.

Lehar’s operetta The Merry Widow, first staged in Vienna in 1905 and very quickly a global hit, would seem a perfect tonic. It’s a classic rom-com scenario in which, if it were a movie, you can imagine Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in the central roles of the playboy Count Danilo and Hanna Glavari, the fun-loving and immensely wealthy widow. It’s a story of repressed attraction, pride, prejudice and comic missteps before the heartstrings tug tighter and Hanna and Danilo declare their love for each other. Opera Australia has cast as the leads Julie Lea Goodwin as Hanna and Alexander Lewis as Danilo, who have a pleasing, and plausibly romantic, on-stage partnership.

Waltz time... Julie Lea Goodwin and Alexander Lewis as Hanna and Danilo.

Their love interest is central to the story but the background is the bumbling attempts by the Pontevedrian embassy in Paris to keep Hanna’s merry millions within the principality and prevent her marrying a Frenchman. At the time of the premiere, in what were to be the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the light political satire involving a make-believe, near-bankrupt Balkan state would not have been lost on audiences.

But we’re here for the tunes — lilting melodies, galloping marches, party-time choruses and romantic waltzes — and for the gorgeous costumes, designed by Jennifer Irwin. Conductor Brian Castles-Onion kept the musical numbers moving at a crisp pace, and there were some beautiful violin solos, in creamy Viennese style, from concertmaster Jun Yi Ma.

Graeme Murphy, who directed the production (this revival is directed by Shane Placentino) also did the choreography, and he has an inventive modern take on the waltz, ethnic folk dances and the cancan, danced by the cheeky grisettes. There is spoken-word dialogue in Justin Fleming’s English translation — a bit too much of it — and the comedy could be sharpened a notch. Benjamin Rasheed, as the embassy official Njegus, has the right comic touch.

Stacey Alleaume is a perky Valencienne, whose flirtation with Camille de Rosillon (Virgilio Marino) causes a rift with her husband, ambassador Baron Zeta (David Whitney). As Danilo, Lewis is in firm voice and relishes the part of the louche bachelor who is finally forced to confront his feelings. But the evening is Goodwin’s, whose appealing soprano brings enchantment to her solo number, Vilja, and to her duets with Danilo.

The performance has two intervals of 20 minutes. Given there are no interval refreshments because of COVID restrictions, this could have been a shorter, two-act evening.

The Merry Widow, by Franz Lehar. Opera Australia. Sydney Opera House, January 5. Tickets: from $79 plus booking fee. Bookings: [phone] and online. Duration: 3hr, including two intervals. Until January 16.