CDs: Broadway Operettas
While Broadway in the 1920s played host to lightweight, tuneful, star-vehicle musical comedies and a series of lavish revues, there were also a number of highly popular operettas. Although most of them had their comic elements, the Broadway operettas of the period tended to be serious works, and the integration of their musical numbers was a direct precursor of the mature musical plays of the 1940s. The '20s Broadway operetta that transcends all others was Show Boat, which remains the only one regularly performed on Broadway and by theatre companies in the U.S. But others, if less durable, boasted melodious scores and compelling, if melodramatic, action.
EMI has recently issued through its Classics for Pleasure division a new batch of digitally remastered CD compilations of various operetta recordings from its catalogue, made in the '50s, '60s and '70s, and today I'm looking at two of these recent releases. The main feature of the first CD at hand is The Student Prince of Heidelberg a title later shortened to The Student Prince, which, with 608 performances, was the longest-running Broadway musical of the '20s. The 1924 hit was set in 1860 and told the story of German Prince Karl-Franz, who, while completing his education in the university town of Heidelberg, falls for commoner Kathie, a waitress at a local inn. But Karl-Franz must remain true to his obligations to take the throne and marry a princess. The piece has a melancholy ending, with the hero accepting his duty and giving up the love of his life.
The music was by Hungarian-born Sigmund Romberg 1887-1951, who would go on to compose such other hit Broadway operettas as The Desert Song and The New Moon. After its Broadway run, The Student Prince toured the country for the better part of two decades; it was revived on Broadway in '31 and '43, and in London in '68. There were two film versions, and New York City Opera brought it back in the '80s. Its most famous song, the romantic duet "Deep in My Heart," gave its title to MGM's film biography of Romberg. There was also the lovely "Golden Days" for Karl-Franz and his tutor, Dr. Engel, as well as marching and drinking songs for the students.
Of the numerous Student Prince recordings, the most complete is TER's double-CD version, while perhaps the most charming is Columbia's version with Dorothy Kirsten and Robert Rounseville, reissued by DRG. The recently released Classics for Pleasure CD offers World Records' 1961 LP version, with opera tenor John Wakefield opposite Marion Grimaldi, who starred in London productions of Fiorello!, The Matchgirls, and The Boy Friend 1968 revival. Although it runs only about forty minutes, the recording includes all of the principal songs the score contains many reprises and a couple of the act finales. Grimaldi and Wakefield who doubles as Captain Tarnitz, the princess' true love, in the song "Just We Two" are admirable, and this is an attractive performance.
The Classics for Pleasure CDs are filled to maximum length, so to fill out the Student Prince CD, there are ten more tracks featuring material from two earlier Broadway operettas. Playing the heroines of both pieces is Stephanie Voss, best known as the ingenue lead of the London hit Lock Up Your Daughters.
Naughty Marietta 1910 is perhaps the most celebrated piece by Victor Herbert, the foremost Broadway composer of the early decades of the 20th century. Set in New Orleans in the late 18th century and originally produced by Oscar Hammerstein grandfather of Richard Rodgers' partner Oscar Hammerstein II, Naughty Marietta has an eponymous heroine attempting to avoid a marriage in her native Italy, and a hero, American ranger Captain Dick, fighting a band of pirates.
The screen team of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy filmed it for MGM in 1935; City Opera revived it in the '70s; and I've reviewed in this space the DVD of a '50s television version starring Patrice Munsel and Alfred Drake. The new CD features the five most famous songs from the score, including "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp," "Italian Street Song," and "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life."
One of a number of European operettas imported to Broadway following the New York triumph of Lehar's The Merry Widow, The Chocolate Soldier had its premiere in Vienna in 1908 and arrived on Broadway a year later. It was based on the George Bernard Shaw play Arms and the Man, which was musicalized again in Austria and Germany in the '70s as Helden, Helden.
With music by Oscar Straus, The Chocolate Soldier concerns a peace-and-chocolate-loving lieutenant who hides out in the home of a colonel and falls for the colonel's daughter. A '50s TV version co-starred Eddie Albert and Rise Stevens, and I discovered Victoria Clark when she was the leading lady of an appealing Goodspeed Opera House revival. On this disc, we get an overture and four numbers, including the big song for the heroine, "My Hero," a tune perhaps best known from an amusing episode of "I Love Lucy" wherein it's sung by Ethel Mae Potter Mertz Vivian Vance in the recital she gives in her hometown of Albuquerque.
It should be noted that the Marietta and Chocolate Soldier recordings featured on this new CD both lack one track heard on the original LP versions.
Our second EMI/Classics for Pleasure CD today offers a combination of two recordings, both of smash-hit Broadway operettas composed by Prague-born Rudolf Friml 1879-1972. The Vagabond King opened on Broadway less than a year after The Student Prince, and comfirmed Romberg and Friml as the kings of the romantic musical play. The source play for The Vagabond King had already been musicalized by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with the result performed by an all-girl amateur company. But the producer wanted someone more experienced for the Broadway adaptation of the material, and hired Friml. A spectacle set in Paris, The Vagabond King concerns real-life 15th century poet Francois Villon, who was played by Dennis King, the Alfred Drake/Brian Stokes Mitchell of his day. Villon becomes king for a day, helps defeat the Burgundians, and wins the hand of a noblewoman.
Friml's score includes a stirring march, "Song of the Vagabonds"; a big love duet, "Only a Rose"; and several songs "Love for Sale," "Love Me Tonight," "Tomorrow" whose titles would later be recycled elsewhere. There were two film versions, the first with King opposite MacDonald, the second with Kathryn Grayson and the single-named Oreste.
Classics for Pleasure offers a 1961 World Records recording, starring in the title role Edwin Steffe, who played the lead in The Most Happy Fella around the U.S. and in London, and also appeared on Broadway in Cry For Us All, Anya, and Canterbury Tales. He's a vibrant baritone with a ringing upper range, and Lissa Gray makes a limpid Katherine, the aristocrat won by Villon. It's a handsome, too-little-known score, and this is a fine account of it.
A year before The Vagabond King, Friml's other Broadway smash, Rose-Marie 1924, 557 performances, also starred King and was also grandly spectacular. Set in Canada, it tells of singer Rose-Marie, who loves fur-trapper Jim, their romance threatened when Jim is framed for murder by a jealous rival. Murder was a decidedly serious subject for a Broadway musical at the time, and the show was further distinguished by the integration of its score, with only five distinct song titles listed in the program.
Friml collaborated on the music with Herbert Stothart, and the book and lyrics were by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II, the latter just a few years away from Show Boat. Rose-Marie was filmed three times, the first a silent with none other than Joan Crawford in the title role, the next with MacDonald and Eddy in '36, and finally in the '50s with Howard Keel and Ann Blyth.
The most famous and often spoofed Rose-Marie song was the "Indian Love Call," but the score also boasts "The Mounties" march, a lilting title song, and the catchy "Pretty Things." Rose-Marie became the longest-running musical of the '20s in London, and is also beloved in France. Among other recordings of the score, an RCA Victor LP starring Julie Andrews is notable.
Classics for Pleasure offers Rose-Marie in another 1961 recording originally on World Records, and it features two of the leads Andy Cole, Maggie Fitzgibbon of the 1960 London revival of Rose-Marie. One track the heroine's "Door of My Dreams" has been added from yet another Rose-Marie recording, a 1957 HMV version, sung by Elizabeth Larner London's Camelot, Wish You Were Here, Four Musketeers. Otherwise, the title role is sung here by sweet-voiced Barbara Leigh, opposite the strong singing of David Hughes. And it's always fun to hear powerful belter Fitzgibbon, who starred in the London Do Re Mi and Boys from Syracuse and the Australian Sail Away.
These two Friml scores combined are a good buy, particularly as the Classics for Pleasure CDs are sold at bargain prices.