All eyes were on Thomas Allen. Not that there was no other attraction. On the contrary, every inch of the stage in Glyndebourne’s The Merry Widow (1905), magisterially conducted by John Wilson and maximally directed by Cal McCrystal, teemed with visual glory: a sweeping, Hollywood-style staircase down whose banister the inebriated hero, Danilo, could make his entry, sliding from top to bottom and hic-c-ing all the way; a throng of silk bustles and net ruffles in bold stripes or sherbet colours, as gorgeous as any herbaceous border in June; oversize, Dior-style hats worn at a saucy tilt; sexy grisettes with high kicks and black stockings; fit, dandyish men in tight suits, luxuriant moustaches styled à la Marcel Proust.
Why, then, amid all this spectacle, be transfixed by Allen, a septuagenarian with a stage totter, apparently recalcitrant dancing feet and not much to sing? This world-class British baritone, after decades on the opera stages of the world, knows the power of stillness. His comedic restraint – as the smug Baron set on saving his Pontevedrian homeland from bankruptcy – was the steadying force in a big-hearted, hyperactive new staging of Franz Léhar’s operetta which opened at the East Sussex festival last weekend.
