#lehar

I think you are right next to Wagner any other opera might well be considered light opera. It’s like going from reading Thomas Mann, James Joyce or Marcel Proust to Alexandre Dumas, Jane Austen, and P.G. Wodehouse.

I do enjoy ‘light opera’ (or also known as operettas) but it’s been a while since I’ve attended a performance. I suspect it’s because the cost of going to operas is quite steep these days so you have to discriminate. Alongside how lucrative ticket availability is and the time free one actually has to attend then like many others, I tend to save my money, effort, and time, on going to the really big operas instead of the lighter variety.  You want more bang for your buck as they say.

I admit you sucker yourself into thinking you are going to a ‘major cultural event’ by going to a big heavyweight opera. But of course it’s not true at all.

I think part of the problem is the term light opera or operetta itself. It’s a problem of definition. How on earth does one describe it? It comes across as a bit of a derogatory term and not something to take seriously.

It’s very difficult to define the lines between musical theatre, operetta, and opera, especially when opera companies occasionally mount musical theatre or operetta productions. People have proposed a number of possible criteria: Perhaps in musicals and operettas, the words matter more than the music and vice versa in operas. This is somewhat true, but one can think of counterexamples - for instance, the primacy of the music - some of it stolen from operas–in several of Weber’s musicals. Perhaps it is the presence or absence of dialogue. But it begs the question does that make The Magic Flute, Ariadne auf Naxos, Carmen, and other examples of Singspiel and opera comique musicals? And does it make Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera operas?

There doesn’t seem to be a workable, clear criterion.

The best anyone can come up with is that an operetta is something that falls between opera and a musical. I’m not sure how helpful that really is but essentially it’s the least offensive definition I have come across. Like a musical, an operetta (most often) contains spoken dialogue, as well as song. Operettas are often satirical and witty, and tend to be much shorter and less complex than traditional operas. But the mistake would be to get sniffy about it and not treat it with a sensible level of seriousness because it has a great musical lineage and popular mileage to match.

Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus walks the line between opera and operetta. It is performed at the world’s leading opera houses (like the Met in NYC), which usually sniffily shun operettas. Interestingly when it was first performed in Vienna at the Theatre an der Wien in 1874, it was to an unmoved audience. It wouldn’t be for another two years that the Viennese audience took to the operetta, and another 16 years before the Vienna Opera added Die Fledermaus to its repertoire. But now it’s well known and beloved all over the world. I know from experience that it’s also a go-to piece for Gilbert and Sullivan societies looking to mix up their annual repertoire. It is frequently performed in English in English-speaking countries, but it is also frequently performed in the original German in English-speaking countries. It has gotten the Regie treatment - which operettas are usually spared–on several occasions, but when directors aren’t super-imposing dark political or psychological messages onto it, it’s about as silly and contentless as an opera/etta could possibly be. I love it.

Johann Strauss the younger of course modelled his operettas on Jacques Offenbach, the 19th Century French composer. Strauss’s satire was often generic, unlike Offenbach who commented on real-life matters. Also unlike Offenbach’s, and other operettas of the time, Die Fledermaus relies on the power of the orchestra, and only one role can be performed by an untrained voice.

I do enjoy the works of Jacques Offenbach. Which is just as well as he is credited with inventing the operetta art form and composing over 100 of them. His achievement of course paved the way for Strauss, Gilbert & Sullivan, and the musicals of the 20th century, which stemmed from the genre.

I have enjoyed watching and listening to his works such as  Orpheus in the Underworld (Orphée aux enfers), and Beautiful Helen (La belle Helene). Up until 1858, when Offenbach composed Orpheus, his theatrical licence prevented him from staging any operas with more than one act, or four characters. After negotiation (with Napoleon III’s government) he was finally allowed to stage full-length operettas, and Orpheus in the Underworld was premiered. To get back at the young Napoleon’s strict regime, Offenbach wrote an operetta that satirised Paris and its government. Surprisingly, the emperor allowed Offenbach to stage the operetta without any censoring.

Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár’s operetta Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow), is one I do enjoy immensely. The melodies and songs - Vilja, The Merry Widow Waltz, You’ll Find Me At Maxim’s, to name but a few - are lovingly played and sung the whole world over, making it one of the surest box-office attractions of all time.

There is no question I think that the Austro-Hungarian Franz Lehár revitalised the world of Viennese operetta after the golden age of this genre with composers such as Suppé, Strauss and Millöcker was over. While Strauss, who transplanted the light waltz of the 19th-century bourgeoisie into Offenbach’s harshly satirical tradition, is regarded as the inventor of the Viennese operetta, Lehár’s The Merry Widow was an extraordinary and unexpected success in the Vienna of Freud, Mahler, Schnitzler and Schönberg. It was Lehar’s merit to have revived this genre to much critical acclaim.

Apparently, Hitler referred to the operetta as ‘the equal of the finest opera,’ and it is rumoured to be the only piece of music the dictator would play during the last two years of the war. Thankfully, Lehár and his operetta remain untarnished by their association with Hitler, largely because the composer kept a low profile during the war and died shortly afterwards. The Merry Widow is still popular worldwide. And rightly so.

One reason why I love it is within the story itself. Today, Hanna would be called a modern woman. At the time of the world premiere in 1905 such a role design caused a sensation. Valencienne, on the other hand, is the counterpart to her; she corresponds more to the traditional, conservative role model.

So I would put Die Fledermaus, Orphée aux Enfers, and Die Lustige Witwe in the tier one of operettas.

But it’s the next tier that I have a more personal attachment to and those would be the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan. And why not? They are such jolly good fun and an immensely enjoyable spectacle. 

I have known G&S aficionados get sniffy or bristle with annoyance about G&S works being described as operattas - including many of the older generations in my family. One of my great aunts practically snorts with disdain in her dram of Scotch whisky at the very suggestion. She just sees that as another sign of civilisational decay. I think Gilbert & Sullivan themselves thought of their works as comic operas more than anything else.

But they do share one major trait with Offenbach and that is they do satire in such biting ways. Indeed they often poke fun at the establishment and use wit and humour as a way of expressing political opinion. But what sets them apart from everyone, including Offenbach, is how unpretentious they are in the music and to tell it as a story with such gaeity and wit that puts on dry English humour at its best.

I would say The Mikado, Iolanthe, and The Pirates of Penzance would be three of my favourite G&S comic operas from the fourteen they did.

Before Gilbert, a lawyer by training, died in 1911 he asked that The Mikado, an operetta set in Japan (although in fact a commentary on British issues), be updated to reflect current issues. Indeed it’s one of the many highlights that I love the most about The Mikado is how inventive they are going to be when they come to do ‘It’s on the list’. As G&S afficianados know ‘The List’ is list of gripes on current personalities and current affairs that have nothing to do with the opera. It’s very funny.

One of my favourite parts of The Pirates of Penzance’s is the famous Major General’s song that parodies the military leader who, although well educated, knows basically nothing about warfare or technology.

Another favourite of mine is from The Mikado - the beloved Three Little Maids From School Are We.

Other operettas on my list would include, in no order:

Auber - Haydée ou Le Secret Bernstein - Candide Carl Zeller - Der Vogelhändler Chabrier - L'Étoile Franz von Suppé - Boccaccio Gilbert & Sullivan - H.M.S. Pinafore Johan Strauss II - Der Zigeunerbaron Karl Joseph Millöcker - Der Bettelstudent Karl Joseph Millöcker - Gasparone Lehár - Das Land des Lächelns Lehár - Zigeunerliebe Offenbach - La Vie Parisienne Offenbach - La Belle Hélène

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