Palm Beach Opera closes season with 'The Merry Widow'

Things are fiscally tight in Pontevedro, the fictional Balkan principality, unless its ambassador to France can persuade the widow Hanna Glawari to keep her fortune in the country and save it from bankruptcy.

But Baron Zeta, the ambassador, has a problem: He wants to do this by getting Hanna to marry the noted playboy Count Danilo Danilovitch, her former lover — but he’s not interested.

On this premise hangs the tale of "The Merry Widow," one of the best-known of all Viennese operettas, and a hit since its premiere in 1905. With a score by the Austrian composer Franz Lehár, the operetta — an opera with spoken dialogue — has remained a favorite for its lushly melodic, sentimental music, its elegant Parisian setting and its charming story, one that English National Opera called “opera’s greatest rom-com.”

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"The Merry Widow" will be the final production in Palm Beach Opera’s current 60th anniversary season. It will run for three performances from Friday to Sunday at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.

Soprano Jennifer Rowley will sing Hanna, and baritone Andrew Manea is Danilo. Also in the cast will be the Metropolitan Opera stalwart Dwayne Croft in the baritone role of Baron Zeta. Singing Camille, the Baron’s wife, will be soprano Elizabeth Sutphen, while her admirer, the Count de Rossillon, will be sung by tenor Duke Kim, a former Benenson Young Artist at Palm Beach Opera.

Although the original operetta is in German (Die Lustige Witwe), the company will perform the work in English, and provide English supertitles.

The art deco-inspired production, originally designed for Utah Opera, will be directed by Helena Binder, who helmed Palm Beach Opera’s "Barber of Seville" in 2020. The music will be led by Ward Stare, former director of the Rochester (N.Y.) Philharmonic, who led the Metropolitan’s 2017 production of "The Merry Widow," which starred Susan Graham as Hanna.

The score's popular tunes include “The Merry Widow Waltz,” “I’ll Go to Maxim’s,” and “Vilja,” written in a style akin to the dance music and operettas of Johann Strauss II, one that would be embraced by American audiences of the early 20th century. Lehár’s colleagues included such now-forgotten composers as Reginald de Koven, Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg, whose works would be overshadowed beginning in the 1920s by the American musical comedy.

"Lehár’s best-known operetta is a comic delight, and will make for a memorable closeout to our historic 60th anniversary season,” said David Walker, Palm Beach Opera’s general director, in a prepared statement.

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If you go

Performances of "The Merry Widow" are set for 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Kravis Center. Tickets start at $25. Call Palm Beach Opera at 561-833-7888 or visit pbopera.org; alternatively, visit the Kravis box office at kravis.org or call 561-832-7469.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach Opera ends season with Lehar operetta The Merry Widow