Interesting. While it's true that none of these characters are held up as models of virtue (and Desiree is having an affair with another married man), I kind of prefer to think of Fredrik as a man who would not cheat on his wife, although your point about his marriage having been why they would not have been able to get together is a good one.
But when I think of Anne talking about how lonely and sad he was the summer after his wife died (which comes pretty directly from Bergman), I prefer to think of him as having been truly choked up over his wife's death. Of course, he could have had an affair with Desiree and still have been devastated by his wife's death.
Some years back, D'Jamin Bartlett was interviewed in the Sondheim Review. One of the things she talked about was that she had never fully appreciated Glynis Johns's performance till she got to play Desiree herself some years later. She specifically said that Desiree could easily be viewed by the audience as a rather unpleasant woman — one who is having an affair with another woman's husband and simultaneously plotting to steal another woman's husband. Johns made the audience like her and root for her despite that.
So, yeah, as you say, Desiree (much as audiences may tend to like her) is hardly a model of virtue.
Fredrik does have the line to Henrik about Anne being too young for him to reasonably expect her to take his mother's place.
Of course, if "Two Fairy Tales" hadn't been cut, we'd have the image of his mother having repeatedly read him this rather sad and gloomy story.
Well, the lyric doesn't actually say that she read it to him repeatedly, but one does get the image of Henrik saying to her, "Read it again! Read it again!" ;)
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