REVIEW: The Merry Widow, White Horse Opera, Devizes Corn Exchange (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

REVIEW: The Merry Widow, White Horse Opera, Devizes Corn Exchange

1:36pm Thursday 23rd October 2008 in Search By Lewis Cowen

Once a year the Corn Exchange in Devizes resounds to the best of opera courtesy of the home-grown semi-professional White Horse Opera.

In its 18th year the group has chosen Franz Lehar’s masterpiece, The Merry Widow. The music is enchanting, the melodies familiar and the genre is on the cusp between classical opera and what we now know as the Broadway musical.

And once again the company has got some excellent voices both among the principals and the chorus. Francis Griffin as musical director gives Lehar’s score full rein. He will be sorely missed.

So what is missing? Well, there's an awful lot of dialogue and this is something WHO has not had to deal with in the past.

If last Wednesday night’s performance is anything to go by, they need more practice. The production fell to the stage with a resounding thud whenever the music stopped. With the best will in the world most of the audience would have been praying for the players to shut up and sing.

For when they did, it was magical. In the title role of Hanna Glawari, the widow of the late finance minister of Pontrevedria who has popped his clogs leaving her 20 million (the currency is immaterial), Lynsey Docherty was magisterial.

She had full command of both the score and the character and was well on top of the humour of the piece.

She was well matched by Guy Edwards as Count Danilo, the dissolute playboy who is the last hope of Pontrevedria to keep the Glawari millions from the grasp of some Parisian wastrel. Physically impressive, Mr Edwards has a voice to match and also coped well with the dialogue.

Edward Harper brought his magnificent bass to the role of Baron Mirko Zeta, the Pontrevedrian ambassador in Paris.

As his wife Valencienne, Anna Vaupel had verve, a gorgeous voice and a commendable high kick in the Maxim's scene. She was well partnered by the talented Carl Malmgren as her lover, Camille de Rosillon.

M'Lou Llewellyn's debut as stage director was memorable, especially in the second half of the show, leading up to a scintillating finale.