Review: Vancouver Opera’s The Merry Widow

The Merry Widow
Where: Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
When: Repeats Oct. 25, 27, 7:30 p.m. | Oct. 28, 2 p.m.
Somewhat untypically, Vancouver Opera began its latest season with a Viennese confection from yesteryear, Franz Lehár’s 1905 The Merry Widow. It’s an interesting question why, exactly, a bourgeois entertainment from over a century ago is still considered fair game for opera companies. The plot is shallow, the tunes sugary, the values dubious. And yet listeners of sentimental