The Merry Widow

National Concert Hall, Dublin

LYRIC OPERA'S presentation of The Merry Widowoffers an evening of musical and visual delights. The scenery is simple, the lighting is colourful and the costumes are sumptuous.

Conductor Fergus Sheil gives Lehár’s delicious score all the respect it deserves and his 20-plus musicians respond admirably. Mind you, positioned as they are on the floor rather than in a pit, they sometimes overwhelmed the singers on opening night.

Elizabeth Woods is an elegant widow whose creamy lyric soprano is heard at its best in her slower music, especially in the show’s hit number Vilja. Her poor enunciation of the words, however, left many in the audience wondering what she was actually singing about. Opposite her, as a debonair if world-weary Count Danilo, baritone James Claverton offers perfect diction and delivers his music in a pleasant high baritone.

In their scenes together, they make a striking couple.

The clandestine affair between the ambassador’s wife Valencienne and her French lover de Rosillon is convincingly portrayed by Nicola Mulligan and Brian Gilligan, whose second-act duet provides one of the evening’s most tender moments. Spot-on timing enhances the comedy duo of Tony Finnegan as the ambassador and Jimmy Dixon as his factotum Njegus, and there is a strong line-up of supporting characters.

Director Vivian Coates moves the spoken episodes along crisply and he and choreographer Siobhán McQuillan create some telling stage pictures. McQuillan’s team of dancers step through a succession of well-executed routines. The chorus is strong, too strong in the atmospheric opening of Act Two, but it adds great body to the two concerted finales.