The Merry Widow

The duel of a beautiful young widow - a woman who defends her love under the onslaught of dowry seekers, and a brilliant life-seeker who gives up positions, surrendering to sincere feeling. Five hundred million dowry widows (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 the enviable bride? ..

Having first appeared on the scene of the Leningrad Musical Comedy in 1935, "The Merry Widow" has been regularly returning to its poster for more than eighty years. And the new performance is the seventh version of this masterpiece by Franz Lehar, famous throughout the world thanks to the famous cancan (the second most popular after the cancan by J. Offenbach). By the way, in the new performance this dance had been given special attention. After all, the stage 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.

Musical Director and Conductor of the new performance - Honored Artist of Russia Maestro Andrey Alekseev made sure that the ingenious music of Franz Legar sounded for the first time in a long time as close as possible to how it was conceived by the author. The musical score is carefully released from the borrowings used in the last years’s productions. A special highlight of the production will be the longest cancan in the history of "The Merry Widow". According to the director, he tried to follow the original libretto as closely as possible, correcting only a few moments that are not as relevant today: “The modern audience lives at a different pace. My task, as a director and choreographer, is to preserve the sensuality and elegance of the production, and at the same time make the action more dynamic. ”

In addition, the performance is very beautiful, because the decoration for it was created by the famous master of stage design solutions Domenico Franchi (Italy). He has more than 70 performances, starting with classical operas and ending with modern art installations. In his approach to work, Domenico is guided by the idea that set design and costumes are not just decoration, but an active part of the performance, which should help the viewer to feel more deeply what is happening on stage. Its task is to transfer to the Merry Widow an elusive veil of the 1900s era and the Art Nouveau Golden Age.

Libretto by Victor Leon and Leo Stein (based on the play «L’Attaché d’Ambassade» by Henri Meilhac

Stage Director and choreographer - Giorgio Madia (Italy)

Musical Director and Conductor - Honored Artist of Russia Andrey Alekseev

Scenographer - Domenico Franchi (Italy)

Assistant of scenographer (costumes) - Filippo Guggia (Italy)

Conductor - Dmitry Savenkov

Lighting Designer - Denis Solntsev

Director - Ekaterina Aronova

Assistant to the director - Sofia Krylova

Assistants to choreographer - Ivan Dryomin, Galina Ryzhikova

Choirmaster - Evgeny Takmakov