★★★★☆
Call it flimsy. Call it frivolous. Call it an Ernst Lubitsch fantasy of love in a bygone age. A patchwork of Viennese waltzes and Parisian foxtrots, fragmentary street songs and heart-spinning arias, La Rondine offers sweet escapism and salty realism. Its courtesan heroine, Magda, has seen too much of life to fall properly in love. Its hero, Ruggero, has seen too little. Premiered in 1917, Puccini’s twist on the Traviata narrative has no particular sense of place, but an acute sense of social station and the longing to slip between worlds.
Designed by takis and lit by Mark Howland, Martin Lloyd Evans’s production places this fragile work in the VistaVision glamour of the 1950s. Magda (Elizabeth Llewellyn) lives in luxury, her split-level eau de