Danielle de Niese on starring in The Merry Widow: It is operas Love Actually… a Christmas cracker [Video]

When I asked superstar soprano Danielle de Niese about her next singing engagement, I wasn’t expecting her to answer that it would be in Davos, opening the World Economic Forum. Apparently that’s where she’s at now – being invited to inspire and encourage the world’s leaders to sort everything out with nothing but her considerable charisma and that famously crystalline voice.

Before that singularly exclusive gig though, a much wider audience will get the chance to experience her stunning performance as Hanna, the titular Merry Widow in Franz Lehár’s giddy opera, when Glyndebourne’s critically acclaimed production is shown on BBC Four on Christmas Day.

If you’re not sure that opera is for you, she says when we meet, “then The Merry Widow would be your perfect entry point. Because there’s so many bangers in it that you don’t realise you know.”

She trills the first four notes of The Merry Widow Waltz and I see what she means (I …