The Merry Widow
Bergman set a new audience record (155,000 viewers) as Malmö City Theatre celebrated its 10-year anniversary with this celebrated operetta.
'The Merry Widow is like a wonderful old kerosene lamp. One must be careful not to put electric lights in it. It has to be treated with care and must not be modernized.'Ingmar Bergman
About the production
In the early 1970s Barbra Streisand asked Bergman to make a film version of the operetta, with her in the leading role. Bergman wrote a synopsis, but a film never came out of it.
Sources
- The Ingmar Bergman Archives.
- Birgitta Steene, Ingmar Bergman: A Reference Guide (Amsterdam University Press, 2005)
Bergman's operetta production was a huge public success and changed his image as a theatre director. Up to then, his work had been associated with dark dramatic subjects. That he would bother to produce an operetta took reviewers by surprise, but they were delighted at the humour and ironic touch of The Merry Widow; where Bergman's angst had been 'replaced by a spurting joie de vivre'.
What excited the critics the most was Bergman's upgrading of a popular middle-class form of entertainment to a refined and sophisticated theatre art.
Collaborators
- Åke Askner, Baron Mirko Zeta
- Britta Larke, Valencienne
- Gunnel Nygren-Almquist, Valencienne
- Per Grundén, Count Danilo
- Gaby Stenberg, Hanna Glawari
- Sigvard Berg, Camille de Rossillon
- Paul Höglund, Vicomte Cascada
- Arne Dahl, Raoul de St. Brioche
- Per Björkman, Bogdanowitsch
- Ulla Hellberg, Sylvaine
- Per Hjern, von Kronow
- Ulla-Greta Starck, Olga
- Åke Åkerlund, Pritschitsch
- Anna-Greta Nyberg, Praskowia
- Toivo Pawlo, Njegus
- Marianne Törje, Lolo
- Marianne Andersson, Dodo
- Gisela Bennech, Jou-Jou
- Titti Dupont, Frou-Frou
- Judith Frithiof, Clo-Clo
- Stina Jerre, Margot
- Leo Stein , Author
- Viktor Léon, Author
- Carl-Gustaf Kruuse , Choreography
- Ingvar Wieslander, Musical arrangement
- Ingmar Bergman, Director
- Per Falk, Designer