FULL of comedy and fantasy, mingled with tragic love Lehàr’s The Merry Widow will be screened live from the MET Opera at venues across Worcestershire.

Malvern Theatres, Vue Worcester and The Regal in Evesham are just some of the venues screening the enchanting operetta on Saturday, January 17 at 5.55pm.

Marking the Met debut of award-winning director and choreographer Susan Stroman, it also features the lavish costumes of William Ivey Long with whom Stroman collaborated on The Producers and Crazy for You.

The great Renée Fleming stars as the beguiling femme fatale who captivates all Paris in Lehár’s enchanting operetta.

Stroman and her design team of Long and Julian Crouch have created an art-nouveau setting that climaxes with singing and dancing grisettes at the legendary Maxim’s.

Nathan Gunn co-stars as Danilo and Kelli O’Hara is Valencienne while Andrew Davis conducts.

O’Hara has trained as an opera singer and went on to become the star of numerous musicals, garnering five Tony nominations in the process.

Opposite O’Hara and singing the lead role of the European millionairess, Hanna Glawari, Fleming adds a further new role to her Live in HD triumphs.

Not only is Hanna the 22nd role that Fleming has sung at the Met, it is the ninth role that she has broadcast Live in HD.

Joining Fleming and O’Hara on stage for this performance of Lehár’s best-known composition are Grammy award winner Nathan Gunn as her womanising lover Danilo, and Alek Shrader as the young Frenchman Camille de Rosillon.

The final ingredient in this heady mix of the Met and Broadway are a strong contingent of Brits.

On stage, in the role of the calculating Baron Zeta, is Sir Thomas Allen, who has been a frequent and much-loved guest at the Met for nearly 35 years; in the pit is Sir Andrew Davis, a former music director at Glyndebourne and long-term chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and as such, a regular conductor of the Last Night of the Proms.

Jeremy Sams, who has been involved with two recent New Year’s Eve Galas at the Met – The Enchanted Island and Die Fledermaus – is responsible for the opera’s new translation.

Tickets can be purchased at the various venues' box offices: Malvern Theatres 01684 892277 or malvern-theatres.co.uk, Vue Cinema 0871 224 0240 or myvue.com and The Regal 01386 421007or theregal.ac.