Merry Widow Suite (arr. Pat Ryan)

arranged by Pat Ryan

Merry Widow Suite

The most successful of all Lehár’s operettas, the most successful of all Viennese operettas next to Die Fledermaus, was and still is Die lustige Witwe (“The Merry Widow”), which was first performed in Vienna in 1905. Set for the most part in the Paris legation of an imaginary Balkan state, it skilfully exploits both the sophisticated amusements of the great city and the sentiment associated with the backward way of life in “Pontevedro.” The stylish and carefree Da geh’ ich zu Maxim (I’m off to Chez Maxim) - sung by Count Danilo Danilowitsch, the charmingly dissolute secretary to the Pontevedran legation - belongs to the former category. The nostalgic Vilja song - introduced by Hanna Glawari, a young and rich and beautiful Pontevedran widow - falls in the latter category.

The most famous item of all, the so-called “Merry Widow Waltz,” belongs neither to Paris nor to Pontevedro: it is an essentially Viennese inspiration and could have been written nowhere else. Its effect, however, is momentous, since it reunites former lovers Danilo and Hanna and so ensures that, far from falling into the hands of a fortune-seeking Frenchman and so sinking the whole Pontevedran economy, the Glawari riches stay in the country.

These three numbers are all included, along with several other poular favourites, in the Merry Widow Suite arranged for Sir John Barbirolli by Pat Ryan, who at one time doubled as clarinettist and librarian to the Halle Orchestra in Manchester.