Routlegde’s “Genre Beyond Borders: Reassessing Operetta”

Back in the year 2019, the University of Leeds hosted an conference put together by Derek B. Scott and Anastasia Belina. It was entitled “Gaiety, Glitz and Glamour, or Dispirited Historical Dregs?  A Re-evaluation of Operetta” (for more information click here). Instead of publishing all the papers from that conference, Bruno Bower, Elisabeth Honn Hoeberg and Sonja Starkmeth have selected invidiual topics (and added a few new essays of their own) to be published under the title Genre Beyond Borders: Reassessing Operetta. This 250 page volume rcently come out – somewhat unnoticed by many – as a Routedge book for the steep price of 130+ Euros. We asked Kurt Gänzl to review it for us. Here’s what he has to say under the headline: “A modern operetta book review”.

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 … 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, we 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 occasionally someone retrograde churns out the same old untruthful trash that passed for ‘history’ a decades and decades ago. Well, this volume includes examples of both extremes.

I know, personally, one of the fourteen contributors. I haven’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 title is off-putting. It seems it’s of the fashionable ‘seminar’ type. University style stuff from multiple hands. Everything I and my works are and were not. However, I got selective enjoyment and new information from a French volume on similar lines culled from a series of chatshows by Mons 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 buzz-words of the 21st century academic …  but I see some interesting buzz-word-free titles..  don’t pre-judge, Kurt.

Omigod! Musical examples. And figures. Don’t pre-judge, Kurt. Read.

Introduction. So full of ‘references’. These compendia seem to be like wikipedia articles. Made out of footnotes quoting other folks’ writings. Why don’t the writers just listen to and read the original texts, rather than glueing together bits of what has been said by other (rightly or, too often, wrongly) elsewhere?

And, oh dear, undue emphasis on that most intermittently fashionable of opéras-bouffes (not ‘opérettes’), L’Étoile. I think I’ll just skip to the articles.

The first one sounds interesting. And relevant. ‘The Operetta Seasons Considerably Decreased our Losses’ could refer to almost any opera house 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, publishing and reading the whole collection. The information gathered and contained within 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 3-4pp of ‘I pinched this from here’ listings which follow the text. I skipped them. Sig Paoletti, your work can stand on its own merits without them. I await (if you hurry, I’m nearly 80) your complete history of the Italian operetta/musical theatre. You can do it!

PS my late wife [sic] 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 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 Das Puppenmädel. E tutti quanti. And Jerome Kern. I’m sure it’s an interesting study, comparing Fall’s 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 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!

Article 4.

Hungary. Yesssss! The Hungarian Operett/musical is the most joyous and underinvestigated area of the genre in the world. Yes, 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 only deals with the years 1922-1926, but being an article and not a volume, 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, Chant 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, fair enough. 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 with an interest in the censorship issues which surrounded them rather than 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’.

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, especially, Der letzte Walzer.

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. Or 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.

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 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.

I see John Rigby (whom, amongst all the writers in this volume, 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 [for more information, click here]. 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.

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. This 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 haven’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 recognizable. 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?

I don’t know whether I’m convinced or not. But this was fun. The copious notes and bibliography (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?

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.

I leave this piteous topic with a wish that the lumpy Korngoldized 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!

To read the original version of this article, click here.