A Brief Guide to Operetta

Long before Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice, Lerner & Loewe, and even Rodgers & Hammerstein, American and European audiences thrilled to the glorious musical theater of composers like Offenbach, Strauss, Lehár, Kálmán, Herbert and Romberg. Opulent costumes, elaborate sets, and attractive singers and dancers helped catapult their works to the peak of the entertainment world of their time, but the piece de resistance was the music—the beautiful music! Still connecting with us today are songs like “Brüderlein,” “Stout-hearted Men,” “The Merry Widow Waltz,” “Vilia,” “Lover Come Back to Me” and “Serenade.”

Music of the Ages

Traditionally, operetta has been classified into various “Ages,” beginning with the Age of Operas-Bouffes in Offenbach’s Paris of the 1850’s, followed by the Golden and Silver Ages of Viennese Operetta, which took not only Europe, but the United States by storm. However, not to be outdone, The U.S. introduced a theater of its own, with the Ages of American and then Broadway Operetta.

But that was just a beginning. In post Offenbach Paris operetta became romantic and refined, while in England the familiar Victorian operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan held sway, followed by the less familiar Edwardian works of Edward German, and then the West End composers. Elsewhere in Europe, Spain produced “Zarsuela” during the late 19th Century, 20th Century Germany produced works by Benatzky, Weill and Brecht, and a new genre of composers drew on earlier works to create derivative operetta.

This timeless music can be heard once again, performed by Light Opera of New York. a company devoted to presenting the finest musical theater for audiences forever hungry for these ageless works so rarely heard today. What is it about these haunting melodies that so captivates audiences? Here are their stories. You decide!

The Age of Operas-Bouffes

The 1850’s and 60’s gave Paris, and the world, delightful operettas which combined elements of comedy, satire, parody and farce. This was the age of Offenbach, who started it all with works like Orpheus in the Underworld, La Belle Hélène, La Vie Parisienne, Bluebeard, The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, La Périchole and The Brigands. These operettas were intended as entertainments—not for opera houses—but for popular consumption. In a way, they were analogous to the musical comedies of today.

The Golden Age of Viennese Operetta

This first period of classical Viennese operetta is generally considered to have been born on 24 November 1860, with the debut performance of Franz von Suppé’s Das Pensionat (The Boarding School), and reached its finest hour with Johann Strauss II, and Die Fledermaus, in 1874. The Golden Age stretched to the end of the century, and also featured the works of Karl Milloecker and Carl Zeller. Other delightful works of this era are The Light Cavalry, Fatinitza, Boccaccio, A Night in Venice, The Gypsy Baron, and Der Vogelhändler.

The Silver Age of Viennese Operetta

The first performance of Franz Lehár’s Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) on 13 December 1905 marked the beginning of a new heyday, the Silver Age of operetta of the early 20th Century. Other successful operettas of this period included more Lehár (The Count of Luxemburg), Emmerich Kálmán’s Countess Maritza, The Duchess of Chicago and Marinka, Oscar Straus’ The Chocolate Soldier, and works by Leo Fall, Fritz Kreisler and Robert Stolz. Lehár’s music features Slavic strains side by side with exotic, oriental tunes, marches, and songs in waltz time. Kálmán placed strong emphasis on national Hungarian elements. Oscar Straus rejuvenated the tradition of the Viennese waltz, and Stolz became the ambassador of Viennese operetta to the United States, maintaining the popularity of the genre throughout the world during the war years.

The Age of American Operetta

American operetta appeared in the midst of European imports from the 1860’s, but in 1887 The Begum served as the debut of composer Reginald De Koven, whose subsequent Robin Hood, although not a New York hit, was a national triumph. The era of American (not necessarily New York) operetta spanned the last decade of the 19th Century into the first decade of the 20th, and included works by such greats as the March King, John Philip Sousa (Desirée and El Capitan), and Victor Herbert (The Fortune Teller, Babes in Toyland, The Red Mill, Naughty Marietta, Sweethearts, and Eileen). 

The Age of Broadway Operetta

Rudolph Friml and Sigmund Romberg were the principal successors to their American 19th Century counterparts when they brought operetta to Broadway. Their works were spectacularly romantic and full-blooded, with stirring marches often sung by uniformed male choruses. From 1910 through 1930 New York audiences raved to Friml’s Firefly, Rose Marie and Vagabond King, and Romberg’s Student Prince, Desert Song and New Moon. Perhaps America’s greatest operetta, Show Boat, by Jerome Kern, opened on Broadway in 1927, even while he was already preparing audiences for the first of what would soon become a new theatrical idiom, the American Broadway Musical.

Post 1870 Paris

French operetta did not end with Jacques Offenbach, but it was seriously changed after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Costumed romances became more popular than satire, and the riotous, rapid-fire buffoonery was softened into less raucous, more refined gaiety. Lecocq and Planquette tailored their operettas to the tastes of this new era. The latter’s Les Cloches de Corneville (The Chimes of Normandy) may well be the most popular French operetta ever written, based on number of performances. Among the many French composers who, unfortunately, are not remembered for their operettas are Delibes, Bizet, Gounod, Massenet, and Chabrier. The latter’s L’Etoile (The Star) which opened in 1877, could be one of the most neglected of French operettas.

The Victorian Age

England’s answer to Offenbach was Gilbert and Sullivan, arguably the greatest writers of operetta, ever. Early Gilbert actually translated several of the French masterpieces for British audiences. Then, starting in 1875, the G&S team created 13 everlasting productions for the English–speaking world: Trial By Jury, The Sorcerer, HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe, Princess Ida, The Mikado, Ruddigore, Yeomen of the Guard, Gondoliers, Utopia, Ltd, and The Grand Duke. They wrote other works with other collaborators, like Sullivan’s Cox & Box with Burnand, and The Zoo with Stephenson, and Gilbert’s Princess Toto with Frederick Clay.

The Edwardian Age

Edward German completed Sullivan’s opera, The Emerald Isle, and, as the century turned, became the successor composer laureate to Arthur Sullivan during King Edward’s reign. His Merrie England, and Tom Jones are as English as any operettas could be, with beautiful songs and choruses reflecting their native origins. Alfred Cellier composed The Mountebanks to a Gilbert libretto. Tune-wise, Lionel Monckton was king of this era; with The Country Girl, Girls of Gottenberg, Our Miss Gibbs, The Arcadians and more.

The West End

Even in 1930’s England, near the end of Vienna’s Silver Age, some of Noël Coward’s works, such as Bitter Sweet, with tunes like “Ziguener”, “Tokay”, and “Dear Little Café”, were operetta of the most traditional kind. Ivor Novello wrote British operetta that was spectacularly romantic, and he personally performed in the best of them.

Zarzuela

Simultaneously with Victorian England’s G&S, Spain was producing gorgeous operetta that is still little known outside of it’s native country, due to translation difficulties. Starting in the 1880’s, it included composers like Valverde, Chueca, Chapi, and Tomas Breton, whose La Verbena de la Paloma is, perhaps, the most familiar work of this genre in the west.

Continental

Kurt Weill wrote some of the greatest 20th Century operettas, like his Three Penny Opera, and later, Lady In the Dark, (three operettas within a musical). Many of his other works bordered between opera and operetta. Ralph Benatzky today stands for one work, Im weissen Rössl (White Horse Inn).

Pasticcio

A small category of operetta is derived from the works of the great composers, but created by others, like The Great Waltz and Wiener Blut, based on the works of Johann Strauss II, Berté’s Das Dreimäderlhaus based on Franz Schubert, Wright & Forrest’s Song of Norway based on Edvard Grieg, and Rowell & Mobbs’ Engaged and several versions of Thespis based on works of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Operetta Parody

Rick Besoyan presented Little Mary Sunshine to New York audiences in 1959 as a successful send-up of all the operettas that had gone before. Now considered a classic, it is frequently performed. His subsequent The Student Gypsy was not nearly as successful.