The voices are not first-rate Renée Fleming is indeed full of dignity but sometimes you may have nostalgic positive souvenirs of Dagmar Schellenberger or Sigrid Martikke or Beverly Sills or the splendid Gwyneth Jones in one of the best productions of DIE LUSTIGE WITWE - I mean the 1979 production of the Deutsche Oper Belin conducted by Caspar Richter in the ‚Inszenierung‘ by August Everding. The role of Njegus may be acceptable but the actor seems to play each speech as if he says the most amusing sentences. The actors are surrounded by heavy scenery and the costumes are not surprisingly chic.

The acting is poor or even less than poor even if it is, in a way, faithful to the original style. It’s a pity that as usual there are cuts in the score, I mean the delightful cake-walk of the third act, kept off to add more cancan chez Maxim’s and add the extraordinarily beautiful waltz from Lehar’s PAGANINI to give Renée Fleming a great moment to show her vocal qualities.

Here almost all is boring because of lack of humour even if the bravo maestro Sir Andrew Davis is excellent in giving Lehar’s music the real beauty it has. Why? The story of THE MERRY WIDOW is just interesting and perhaps even better than the french forgotten play from which it derives. Not the best, not the worst, but my great expectations from a Met production of the splendid operetta by Franz Lehar have been almost totally disillusioned.

Ny met opera schedule 2015