La vedova allegra by Lehár, dom 02 apr 2023, Da (2022/2023), Diretto da Giorgio Madia,, Direttore d'orchestra Andrey Alekseev, St Petersburg Theater of Musical Comedy, San Pietroburgo, Russia

The duel of a beautiful young widow - a woman who defends her love under the onslaught of dowry seekers, and a brilliant playboy who is losing ground, surrendering to a sincere feeling. The five hundred million dowry of a widow (the entire gold reserve of her small but proud country) is a stumbling block in the way of lovers. So who will get the hand and millions of an enviable bride? .. Having first appeared on the stage of the Leningrad musical comedy in 1935, The Merry Widow has been regularly returning to its playbill for more than eighty years. And the new performance is the seventh version of this masterpiece by Franz Lehár, known all over the world, among other things, thanks to the famous cancan (the second most popular after J. Offenbach's cancan). By the way, special attention is paid to this dance in the new performance. After all, the director - Giorgio Madia - in the recent past, a successful ballet dancer, and today a sought-after choreographer and creator of more than twenty opera and ballet performances in Germany, Poland and Italy. The musical director and conductor of the performance, Honored Artist of Russia maestro Andrey Alekseev , made sure that the brilliant music of Franz Lehar for the first time in a long time sounded as close as possible to how it was intended by the author. The musical score has been carefully freed from borrowings used in productions of recent years. A special highlight of the production was the longest cancan in the history of The Merry Widow . The artistic design of the performance was created by the famous master of scenographic solutions Domenico Franchi (Italy). He has more than 70 performances to his credit , ranging from classical operas to contemporary art installations. In his approach to work, Domenico is guided by the idea that scenography and costumes are not just decorations, they are an active part of the performance, which should help the viewer to feel more deeply what is happening on the stage. In The Merry Widow, he conveyed the elusive flair of the 1900s and the Golden Age of Art Nouveau .