Music Reviews

Mar 19, 2005 - Nevada Opera's dazzling "Merry Widow" waltzes its way into Reno's Pioneer Center

By Jack Neal

Franz Lehar's sumptuously tuneful "The Merry Widow" waltzed into Reno Friday night (3/18/05) at the city's Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts and became for the umpteenth time a big, attractive and dazzling hit.

Starring soprano Diane Alexander as the widow and millionairess Hanna, and tenor Dennis Jesse as Count Danilo longtime Hanna admirer and Hanna love interest, Nevada Opera's "The Merry Widow" simply launches itself to stratospheric heights as a production that looks ravishing, sounds glorious and entertains to the nth degree.

With a faithful and revelatory English translation from the operetta's original German by the late Ted Puffer and his widow Deena Puffer, the couple who founded Nevada Opera 37 years ago, "The Merry Widow" has more than passing ties to Nevada Opera.

Presented with sensitive musicality and with loving care to detail and stagecraft by NO artistic director Michael Borowitz, it's hard to imagine that in its 100 year history Lehar's masterpiece could have been more gorgeously and entertainingly presented. Certainly Friday's near-capcity audience thought so, giving what it saw and heard a quick and sincere standing ovation. In a day when standing ovations are passed around freely, this one was for real and earned.

With Michael Yeargan's handsome, elaborate sets, Thierry Bosquet's elegant costumes, Don Smith's great lighting enhancements, Barbara Land's terrific choreography, Chuck Hudson's swiftly paced and picture-perfect staging and conductor Michael Borowitz's ultra-musical management of Lehar's lush, lush score, Nevada Opera's "The Merry Widow" has it all.

As the widow Hanna, Diane Alexander looks ravishing in a series of fashion-plate gowns. She not only looks grand, but she can act with the best and sings with a beautiful, unforced and wonderfully controlled sound. The lovely "Vilia" is a triumph for Miss Alexander and the chorus. Her Count Danilo is Dennis Jesse, who has charm and voice to spare, which he uses to sublime advantage in the haunting "Merry Widow Waltz" sequence.

The remainder of the well-cast cast is also to die for. With a concrete-block physique and a velvety voice, J. Chris Baum is larger than life as the aging Pontevedrian ambassador to Paris. As his much younger wife Valencienne, who's interested in a much younger man, Suzanne Woods sings with allure and is an equally class act. As Valencienne's much younger man, Camille de Rosillio, tenor John Pickle sings and acts with a passion that befits a young man's more intense physical needs. Simply put, he's all over Valencienne and sings fabulously while he's at it.

And the list of superlative performances goes on.

Lawrence Clawson shines as the over-the-hill legal advisor to the ambassador. One of Nevada Opera's best character actor-singers, Steve Meyer (Nitch) is triumphant in Act III singing the glories of Paris life in a collaboration with the extraordinary international dancer Jack Failla. These two superb singing and dancing gentlemen provide a memorable show stopping moment. And, of course, all the principal men of the show, a la Radio City Rockettes, provide "The Merry Widow" with one of its most crowd-pleasing and hilarious sequences singing of the joys and frustrations of relationships with women.

Not enough can be said for the Nevada Opera Orchestra and Chorus. Both perform at all times with keen professionalism. Credit chorusmaster Eric Gault for his impeccable grooming of the chorus. Not enough can be said either for the production's dancing. It's just waltz, waltz, waltz into an energized cancan in Act III. All of it is marvelously brought off.

Director Hudson has framed the production in a series of early 20th Century "Vanity Fair" setups that give the show a style and glamor that's irresistible. Hudson's ability to fill the stage with real men and women (albeit "real" in the operetta sense) with personal agendas audiences love to follow is also a major plus. That the show ends with the traditional fairytale happy ending only makes a night out with Nevada Opera's glittering "The Merry Widow" that much merrier.

Who could ask for anything more?



Nevada Opera's "The Merry Widow" can be seen at Reno's Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 S. Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada, Friday (3/18/05) at 8 p.m. and Sunday (3/20/05) at 2 p.m. The performance is in three acts and runs exactly three hours. For information call 775 786-4046.