I don't do this, often, any more. In the 1980s, I was the 'Mr Musical Theatre/Operetta' of the planet. I wrote two of the three definitive works on the subject. They still are, actually, definitive nearly half a century later. But 21st century writers on the subject -- and they seem to grow like lichen on a rock nowadays -- are of a different breed. Gerry Bordman, Richard Norton, Florian Bruyas, John Franceschina, the Hungarian scholars, Otto Schnedereit, Andrew Lamb ... we recorded facts. The new generation prefer to 'analyse', 'discuss', 'theorise' and, I'm afraid, too often, invent. And to use our facts (when it suits) to 'support' some theory or drive some cause. So, those of us who are left just sit back and let them get on with it. It's a whole different world. Most of the time, I still prefer our world ... but, hey, people are making careers out of the new way. And, occasionally, one pops up with something solid and really investigative to offer. And, alas, occasionally, someone of the retrograde undergrad type, churns out another slice of the same old untruthful trash that passed for 'history' decades and decades ago. Well, this volume includes examples of both those extremes.
I know, personally, one of the fourteen contributors. I hav'n't read the biographical notes on the others. Purposely. I wonder from where the editor(s) found some of them. No. I don't want to know!
This is what I wrote, after eight hours of reading, on a sunny Monday at the Autralian seaside ...
"I'm not sure I'm quite the apt person to be reading and reviewing this tome. The cover is pretty, but the title is distinctly off-putting. It seems it's of the fashionable 'seminar' type. University-style stuff from multiple hands. Everything that I and my works are, and were, not. However, I got considerable -- if selective -- enjoyment and new information from a French volume on similar lines, culled from a series of chatshows by Mons J-C Yon, so hopefully this one will do the same job.
Here goes. Hmmm. The 'Part' titles don't look promising. 'Class', 'Gender', 'Identity', 'Sexual', 'Politics' ... all the boring buzz-words of the 21st century academic ... but I see some interesting and buzz-word-free titles ... don't pre-judge, Kurt.
Omigod! Musical examples. And figures. No. Don't pre-judge, Kurt. Read.
Introduction. So full of 'references'. These compendia seem to be just like wikipedia articles. Made out of footnotes quoting other folks' writings. Why don't the writers just listen to and read the original texts and scores, rather than glueing together bits of what has been said by other people (rightly or, too often, wrongly) elsewhere?
And, oh dear, here we have undue emphasis on that most intermittently fashionable of opéras-bouffes (not 'opérettes'), L'Étoile. I think I'll just leave the intro, and skip down to the articles.
The first one of these sounds decidedly interesting. And relevant. 'The Operetta Seasons Considerably Decreased our Losses' is a phrase which could refer to almost any opera house/company in Britain, and probably elsewhere, in the present age. Well, change 'operetta' into 'musical theatre' ... as I do, for nobody has ever satisfactorily explained to me the difference.
Wow! Well, whatever the rest are like, Article no 1 (it's actually numbered 2), by Matteo Paoletti, justifies, for me, the publishing and reading of the whole collection. The information gathered and contained within this piece, on the musical in Italy, is an eye-opener, even to this very old student. You have to struggle past the occasional long sentence and big word ... but hey! it is well, well worth it. And did I even know that Florodora had been produced in Italy?
I, of course, could live without the 3-4pp of 'I pinched this from here' listings which follow the text. I simply skipped them. Sig Paoletti, your work can stand on its own merits without such addenda. I await (if you hurry, for I'm nearly 80) your complete history of the Italian operetta/musical theatre. You can do it! Ten gold stars.
PS my late wife toured Italy in the 1960s with Cin-ci-lá, Il paese dei Campanelli et al. and the recordings were delightful.
Article 3.
OK. Lustige Witwe. Been there so many times before. Even played Danilo. And my very friend, Andrew Lamb, wrote a splendidly definitive piece on it, which I see is not referenced here.
Ah! I see. The article is not about Witwe (thank goodness), it's really about the vaudeville Das Puppenmädel. E tutti quanti. And Jerome Kern. I'm sure it's an interesting study, comparing Fall's original score for his piece with what Frohman, Kern and 'American taste' did to it. Yes, it's the sort of detailed monograph which definitely has its place in a tome such as this. I can't partake of the examples because I don't have a working right hand, but go for it, you who can.
The appendix is interesting. I seem to remember I included a similar one in my recently republished The Musical (State University of New York). I must see if they are comparable. But this author, though he references the grand Gerry Bordman ... and a couple of works less reputable ... doesn't appear to have read me! So we may differ.
Article 4
Hungary. Yesssss! The Hungarian Operett/musical is the most joyous and most under-investigated area of the genre in the world. I know Russia and East Germany and Armenia are more à la mode in this day and age, but it is Hungary all the way for me. (Admission: I am of Hungarian stock).
Alas, this piece only deals with the years 1922-1926, but, being an article and not a volume, that's fair enough. Ummm. Starts with a quote from Dick Traubner and says 'exogenous plurality' on page one.
And, oh dear. Errors. Hahn becomes Hanh, Stolz becomes Stolcz, Chanson gitane loses its 'gipsy', Passionnément loses an 'n', Student Prince loses an 'e'. I have always spelled Buttykay sic, am I wrong?
The article appears to be, in verity, an in-depth study of the influence of Ben Blumenthal on the Budapest theatre. An entirely interesting topic. But I sha'n't be reading on, in a piece with so many appallingly egregious errors. Taylor & Francis, get a decent copyeditor!
Article 5
The next section is on 'politics and national identity'. Yerrrrm. Soviet operetta in Czechoslovakia. Well, again, fair enough. And new. There seem to have been 23 (listed here) of them, over the years. I see a few of which I recognise the titles, though I cannot claim to have heard more than the odd number from such as Free Wind. I fear these pieces, even the most 'successful', are of interest mostly to folk who have an interest in the censorship issues which surrounded them, rather than in their musico-theatrical details. Which is perfectly valid. And it is nice to have the breakdown on the Dunayevsky pieces. All knowledge is worthwhile. But iconoclastic I thinks, ever and yon, of Peter Sellers (was it?) and 'The Russian Girl's Hymn to her Tractor'.
I think I have been dragged, less succesfuuly, into this area before! Alas, my Songs for Swinging Sellers went south (to Balham?) years ago.
https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2020/12/serenade-of-soviet-girl-to-her-tractor.html
Article 6
Is about three German-language Operetten which use Poland in their text. All three were successful, so we are familiar with and appreciate them, especially, Der letzte Walzer. Polenblut didn't get a look in.
Article 7.
This is not for me. I don't need to read more about the most over-played of 'Hungarian' and Hungarian pieces. Tell me something about Verö and his contemporaries. Tell me something I DON'T know. Szultán or the wonderful János vitéz.
Phew. That's the end of the politics. Now we're into class and 'gender'.
Article 8
Britain. 1890-1900. Yay! The Geisha, A Greek Slave, Florodora, A Chinese Honeymoon ... a singular period in Brit Mus Th. Here, I am wholly at home! And yes! As the author of the standard work on the subject (2 vols), I even get a tiny mention in the footnotes. Well, this one stretches 'discussion' of the plot and texts of a small handful (not any of the above ones) of successful musicals over incommensurate lengths. No, I didn't learn anything new. And I feel this was a less than needful
exercise.
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| From my bathroom wall |
Article 9.
Travesty. Well, it had to come. But it is not the vast subject in its entirety. Just from Chabrier to Hahn. Er ... not from Vanloo and Leterrier to Guitry?
Naturally. As before. This is an article not a volume. Similarities between the 'boy' roles of Lazuli and Mozart? I would have said they are very, very slight. L'Étoile is a very saucy opéra bouffe and its 'hero' not to be taken seriously for a second. Mozart is a 'play with songs for Yvonne (Printemps)'. Not an opéra-bouffe, not an opéra-comique, not an opérette. And of a wholly different level of textual achievement. More Rosenkavalier than Étoile.
OK. Let's see if the author here comes to the same conclusion. Oh, my goodness! Lazuli and Figaro? Don Giovanni? Gounod? Sorry, I'm lost here. This is far too complex and even far-fetched for me. As L'Étoile, in spite of its ruderies, was for Paris.
Article 10.
Der Zarewitsch. Sigh. Inevitable. I actually find this work the least attractive of this set of shows. Decades ago I wrote 'Perhaps the most thoroughly gloomy of the line of more or less gloomily romantic tales which were elaborated to make libretti for Franz Lehár in the later part of his writing career, Der Zarewitsch, whilst purporting to be based on a real incident in the life of the Russian Tsarevitch Alexis, followed the already cliched formula of Lehár's librettists through its blighted love affair between tenor (extremely large rôle) and soprano (less large rôle) up to the fashionable unhappy ending'.
Clichéd is the word. Same basic idea as Victor/Victoria and its sources. Shades of L'Ile du Tulipatan, Fatinitza and hosts and hosts of others.
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| Fatinitza: a she playing a he playing a she |
I see John Rigby (whom, amongst all the writers in this volumes, is the only one I know personally) has really used the piece as a springboard for a piece on Weimar homosexuality in general. I take issue with him on a few statements: notably that old chestnut that Patience has any homosexual content. Bunthorne and Grosvenor do everything they do for the love of the Ladies. But this is sound scholarship, clearly expressed, and I see my 1980s reference to poor gloomy Alioscha as 'apparently homosexual' gets a nod. Well, he is, isn't he? Not judging, merely stating. I guess there were as many homosexuals in 1927 as they are a century later.
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| Well, its my blog ... |
OK that's the end of the third section. Now we have 'Genre Transformations'. Wonder what that means
Article 11
Ohho! We start with Gilbert (and Sullivan). Once again, I'm on home ground. Oh! Surprise. We are looking at the music rather than the texts. That's interesting and reasonable. The sources of Gilbert's burlesque libretti and lyrics have been (as with the Bab Ballads) pretty well annotated since the year z. Not least by contemporary critics. And we can't forget that WSG set pantomime and burlesque lyrics to popular minstrelsy in his time.
Page 174. Don't disappoint me Mr Bower.
Ummm. The history of burlesque has never been properly documented, in spite of Adams and Clinton-Baddely. I don't know Schoch or Booth. I, myself, twice began a vast volume on the subject, one or two decades ago, but it sits uncompleted somewhere in this computer's brain. I should pass it on .. but to whom? To do it, properly, needs years of devotion, and I hav'n't enough left.
Page 179. Well, blow me down. Here, I am certainly finding things I didn't know! Are these 'quotations' real and intentional or is it a case of 'Hello Dolly'/'Sunflower'? Read on.
Did Sullivan really stoop to dear old 'Wreath of Roses' in Pirates? It was so well known, it would surely have been recognisable. Henry Russell ... well, it's a nice thought that the music was underlining the English essentials of The Mikado (today's yellowface howlers wouldn't like that!). The Pirate King's song? The one that Broccolini said was written in a hurry for him in New York ...? Well, Russell's songs (see Andrew Lamb's biography) were an integral part of British musical life ... so who knows?
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| The original Pirate King |
I don't know whether I'm convinced or not. But this was fun. The copious notes and bibliography of 'sources' (worthy and less than worthy) seem to indicate that heaps of people have had a go at this topic. This article will do me, and I don't think I need any more musical dissections of my beloved Sullivan's works.
Article 12.
Well! Here, I'm on even homer-ground. I took part in the Lanchberry 'version' of Witwe at the London Palladium in the 'seventies. No, I didn't dance. I was a pit singer. The Lehár estate had decreed that the music could not be played without vocal content. In my opinion, they should have zapped the whole idea. To me, familiar with (as recounted above) the Operette, it was a horrid experience. And the dame's age showed embarrasingly clearly from the pit.
Operas in the 19th century didn't need to be remade as ballets. More often than not, as in Robert le diable, they included up to a full act of ballet. Some of which became the feature of show.
I think, under the circumstances, I may be excused from reading the carefully compiled details herein preserved. But they are, now, at least, preserved.
Article 13
Sexual Predation? Textual Correction? I wish these articles had titles that were easier to understand for we poor folk with only a couple of University degrees.
Ah. Is this actually an article trying to censor what modern pressure-groups want to lead us to believe is 'problematic' material? If it is, I sha'n't get past page 1. There is absolutely nothing 'problematic' about The Geisha. The soubrette dresses herself briefly in a kimono. There are several oriental characters. So? Are these yellow-chasers trying to ban Ba-ta-clan too?
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| The great Nätzler as Wun-Hi |
Well, let's see.
Oh no! This is laughable! Watering down the sentiments of stage 'libertines' for the poor little 21st century. What about the 21st century 'libertines' poured nightly on TV and film devotees. 'Hundreds and hundred of girls'.
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| Eliza Vestris as a travesty 'libertine'. |
I leave this piteous topic with a wish that the lumpy Korngoldised version of Eine Nacht in Venedig be forever entombed.
Article 14.
The last one. Good. This is a collection to be dipped into. Not to be read in one straight draught, as I have done today.
Jerome Kern in a book on operetta? Hmmm. The Princess Theatre shows? Oh lawd, I thought we'd killed that dumb appellation and the fake 'significance' attached to it, years ago. 'Integrated' rubbish. 'Unique' nonsense. This article could have been written half a century ago when the most egregious falsehoods about the American musical theatre were still believed. This last item has no place in a serious volume ...
We were Guy Bolton's agents ...
I see that the notes credit 'most authors of historical surveys of the Broadway musical' with supporting these fabrications. I notice that I -- thank goodness -- am not included.
Well, we started with the very Best article and ended with the very Worst. And on the way we passed by some interesting items.
I'm going back to No1. Now THAT was worth getting out of bed for! Things went rather precipitately downhill later on. I think I need a stiff drink ... Cheers to you, Sig Paoletti!
PS. I discover, after delivering my review, that this book is the Nachlasse of a 'conference' held in Leeds, UK, some time ago. I might have guessed. Several of my very knowledgeable friends attended what I am informed was 'three days of tosh'. Apparently there were loads more 'papers' delivered which are not included here. I wonder who selected this bunch! Is it a 'pay to be published' job? Or a 'me and my mates' job? I also wonder ... who paid for the whole exercise, not to mention the publication of this collection ... or is that why it's retailing at a preposterous £108. You could buy the whole of my fact-filled three-volume Encyclopedia for that, some years back. Guaranteed waffle free.
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