Hello, Dolly!

If you're suffering withdrawal symptoms as the opera affords itself a summer siesta, the arrival of a new musical pick-me-up should be enough to keep you going. Divadlo Hybernia's staging of Hello, Dolly! is a light and breezy version of the hit comedy, with English surtitles, ideal to lap up one sultry summer evening. No one dies at the end, either.

If opera can be criticized for sometimes being a tad peremptory, Hello, Dolly! is the opposite. Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman's 1964 Broadway hit about matchmaker extraordinaire Dolly Gallagher Levi (Ivana Chýlková) is shameless farce at its best - the titular character weaving her magic in a variety of hilarious, quite ridiculous situations while contemplating her own future with fusty old creature and "well-known half-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder (Josef Carda).

Chýlková commands the stage presence Dolly demands - a cross between diva, shyster and rudimentary dating website. Holding the narrative together - indeed, controlling every other player like a marionette - she is nonetheless adorable. This is reinforced, of course, by the title song, in which Dolly coos out to her plethora of admirers. Also successful is Chýlková in containing the show's single strand of pathos: Dolly's acceptance of the death of husband Ephram. It wouldn't take much for these monologues to feel cloying, yet - hats off - she avoids this.

Hello Dolly's finest comic moments (and there are many) derive from Vandergelder's wayward clerks Cornelius (Kryštof Hádek) and Barnaby (Jan Meduna). As they decide to shake off the shackles of work in Yonkers and travel to New York with a scheme to "almost get arrested and each kiss a girl," they soon land themselves in uncomfortable waters, committing themselves to an eye-wateringly expensive slap-up meal with hat-shop beauties Irene (Monika A. Fingerová) and Minnie (a disappointingly hammy Berenika Kohoutová).

It may be tried-and-tested material, but it still works. The clerks' intensifying squirming, reluctance to order from the menu, miming out rouses behind the girls' backs and eventual disintegration - it's all wonderful. So too are the tunes the duo is gifted with, like the chirpy "Elegance" with its ingenious bragging: "Middle class - don't speak of it, savoir-faire - we reek of it."

Why the two clerks sport luminous sneakers is never broached; it's unlikely that style of footwear was about in the early 20th century. It would be a good idea for them to tone it down a bit, lest the audience be sidetracked from any of their brilliant gags.

Jerry Herman's brassy, unavoidably catchy score has stood the test of decades. Studio DVA's production employs a full orchestra, and rather neatly ensconces them in the set itself, on display in shop windows and perched high on rooftops. Each number is crafted from equal parts razzle-dazzle and wit, with some tasty little improvisations: a saxophone mimicking a police car, and the chaotic din that eventually brings the restaurant scene to a messy close.

Though Studio DVA's cast never quite hits the notes of the 1969 film (it boasted Barbra Streisand, Walter Matthau and Louis Armstrong, after all), here is an understanding rendition of the musical, and though it's performed in Czech, this does little to detract from an unbowdlerized, very American-feeling production. Unfettered silliness, humor and joy - Hello, Dolly! reeks of it.

A cautionary note for anyone planning to rely on the English surtitles: These are projected particularly high above the stage, and sitting too far down the front on the lower level will probably mean you won't see them at all. It is recommended that you plump for upper-level seats.

Will Noble can be reached at
wnoble@praguepost.com