The new life of Franz Lehar's operetta The Merry Widow directed by Aleksey Frandetti

The chic and luxury of the Art Deco era, the union of the two worlds of theatre and film. The creators of this production of Franz Lehar's operetta The Merry Widow acted as film directors: they came up with video scenes that can hardly be distinguished from archive footage.

In the story, Hollywood star Gabrielle Glover is to star in the same film as ex-lover Daniel Diamond. After their breakup in their youth, he sought solace in numerous romances, while she married a movie mogul and soon became a widow.

The main idea behind this new production of The Merry Widow is to simultaneously retain the charm of classical operetta and bring back the level of humour that was current in the time of Franz Lehar. We got two realities: "The Merry Widow" being filmed, and the reality of Hollywood in the 1920s, said stage director Alexei Frandetti.