by Kevin McLaughlin
The variety of titles that make up Ohio Light Opera’s annual summer series is its secret sauce. Go to a few shows and you’re bound to find something you’ll like, or maybe in this case a dark horse to love. Emmerich Kálmán’s Arizona Lady is an unknown in these parts — an OLO premiere this summer, which I heard on July 6 at Freedlander Theatre. It stumbles a little at times, but in the end she’s a winner.
Kálmán, who was born in Hungary, always sounds middle European to me, no matter the setting of a particular show or scene. Though the music and setting in Arizona Lady occasionally seem at odds, it’s fun to hear Hungarian-tinged folksong one minute, Viennese tradition the next, and Western cowboy songs the next.
Si j’etais vous, I would not trust anyone who tries to solve your problems for you. You have to do it yourself, face up to the bleak black wall looming above and keep standing straight. You succumb if you don’t, and that spells long, regressive rest. Atrophying strength. Decomposition.
