ABSTRACT
An immediate and enduring success, The Australian Ballet's producton of The Merry Widow remains an exceptional example of an opera-to-ballet adaptation and a comparative study of the changes made provides insights into genre translation. This chapter challenges Rodney Edgecombe's (2011) accusation that Helpmann ‘play[ed] fast and loose with the connections between music and drama’, and instead demonstrate how the free rearrangement of Lehár's material reflects the nature of the new medium and the narrative form best suited to it.
Informed by the work of choreomusicologists such as Stephanie Jordan (2000, 2007), Barbara White (2006), and Paul Mason (2012), we will probe the possible connections between the physical actions typical of classical dance and structural alterations made to the operetta score (e.g. regularised phrase lengths, increased use of repetition). Other changes, including the greater tonal freedom employed and a changed orchestral palette, suggest that the arrangers were alluding to musical-theatre practices of the era, perhaps an indicator of the hybrid Australian audiences the original production was expected to draw. Consequently, the ballet conveys the ‘double allusion of familiarity and strangeness’ to those familiar with Lehár's beloved original and, more broadly, provides a remarkable example of genre translation influenced by narrative adaptation, historical context, and the establishment of national opera and ballet identity.
