Palm Beach Opera has done a mostly admirable job recovering from the death of artistic director Anton Guadagno last August, and coping with his absence on the podium. But as Sunday’s matinee performance of The Merry Widow showed, the maestro’s passing has left a substantial void that has yet to be filled. The company’s season-closing production of Franz LehM-ar’s beloved operetta demonstrated how a promising staging can quickly go south without a strong hand on the musical tiller.
Performing Viennese operetta in English, as was the case here and in Sarasota Opera’s recent Fledermaus, would appear to be as damaging to the genre’s style and musical cadences as it would be with Verdi or Puccini. Even in this relatively faithful translation, the jokes don’t seem as funny, and the American accents and overbroad delivery further diluted much of the operetta’s witty sophistication and bittersweet nostalgia.
Even more than the language issue, Palm Beach’s performance was undone by a grievously miscast soprano in the title role. Best known for her stadium gigs with Andrea Bocelli and Placido Domingo, Ana MarM-ma Martinez is a promising young singer with a lovely soprano voice. But Martinez was completely out of her depth here, lacking the charisma and worldly sophistication for the role of the wealthy widow Hanna Glawari. Martinez appeared uncomfortable with the long stretches of dialogue as well as the requisite frothy operetta style. She delivered a tender rendition of Act II’s Vilja, spoiled by going off pitch on a high note.
There was zero romantic chemistry between Martinez’s Hanna and her cynical former lover Danilo, played by Richard Leech. Next to the rest of the under-sung and over-caffeinated cast, the popular tenor brought some much needed professionalism and seasoned stage experience. Leech’s natural ease gave Danilo an understated charm, welcome relief from the surrounding sitcom clowning. Leech’s voice has lost some of its tonal luster yet retains its ballast, and his singing of the famous Waltz came closest to true Viennese style.
The second pair of lovers proved even less sympathetic. As Valencienne, Lorri Ann Williams’ shrill soprano and blond-bimbo appearance lacked any semblance of class or refinement (though she proved a nimble and acrobatic dancer in the Maxim’s scene). Benjamin Brecher’s wan tenor made for an equally charmless Camille.
Lucas Meachem’s blustery Texan of a Baron Zeta and the fey, miles-over-the top hamming of Ardean Landhuis’s Njegus led the scenery mastication of the comprimarios, shamelessly indulged by Viennese director Robert Herzl, who should know better. Michael Yeargen’s sets offered some visual splendor with a neat art-deco Pontevedrian Embassy, spiced by William Schroder’s colorful costumes. Dialogue was amplified mostly unobtrusively, but the company should really re-examine its penchant for putting retired corporate attorneys and well-connected supporters onstage, as displayed by some of the aged comprimarios and matronly Grisettes.
But the performance was most fatally undermined by the conducting of Steven Guadagno, which showed that the apple sometimes can fall awfully far from the tree. The pit direction of the late maestro’s son ranged from passable to completely inept. He managed to cover Martinez even in the light scoring of the Vilja song and was rarely in sync with his singers all afternoon. It’s not easy to divest LehM-ar’s sparkling music of all magic and charm, but Guadagno’s bland time-beating did just that, finding little glow or idiomatic lilt in this wonderful score.
Lawrence A. Johnson can be reached at or 954-356-4708.
