|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Concert Operetta’s ‘A Waltz Dream’ The good old days of central Europe Philadelphia ’s Concert Operetta Theater has evolved to the point where its offerings can be counted on for excellent singing and emotionally satisfying performances. This is quite an accomplishment for a genre once considered to be dead. Concert Operetta Theater is the only performing arts group in the U.S. that has a full season dedicated to operettas, which it produces usually in new translations. This genre features hummable melodies that provoke nostalgia for the glorious days of European monarchies. Operettas sound best when the singers possess power and high notes in reserve. Back in 1908, at the Broadway premiere of A Waltz Dream, the leading man was Edward Johnson, who went on to a career as a Metropolitan Opera tenor at and eventually served as the Met’s general manager from 1937 until 1950. A Waltz Dream was made into a 1931 Ernst Lubitsch film entitled The Smiling Lieutenant, starring Maurice Chevalier and Claudette Colbert. No lung power there, but when shows like this are put on stage, they work best with trained voices, as long as the singers also can act. Michael Gallant, Darlene Kelsey and Kemper Florin definitely can. In this production they looked glamorous as a princess, her new husband and “the other woman,” and they moved well and sang gloriously. The plot, as in most operettas, is silly: On a visit to Vienna, an Eastern European princess marries a commoner. She treats him with a cavalier attitude that makes him feel insecure. On his wedding night, he sneaks out to meet a female musician from back home. Will he be true to his wife, or will he return to his roots? This is slight stuff, and the music is pleasant without being breath-taking. A Waltz Dream isn’t on the musical level of some other operettas from that period. Even so, I enjoyed the two and a half hours of entertainment that this unusual company provided. Michele Scanlon was music director and pianist. Pantano adapted the script from the English libretti by Basil Hood and Grace Isabel Coilbron.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |