Good morning, all! I've booked an appointment (finally!) with a surgeon on Monday to have this abscess/growth/whatever looked at/lanced/removed/whatever. The recommended surgeon, it turns out, no longer handles HIP Continuum referrals, so I had to wait until my insurance company's special services could find another. This week's been uncomfortable and irritable, but I feel better knowing that things are turning the other way. This growth is so uncomfortable that I'm pretty much tied up in the apartment till Monday, but I do hope to get out and meet td and Michael before they go back to other environs on Sunday.
I see that DR Noel has brought up operetta in yesterday's discussions and I missed it, so I thought I'd continue it today. I have to say that the Bordman books are disastrous in my opinions and I really have no great affection for the man or his tomes.
Operetta is indeed a diminutive of opera, and one of the best is indeed set in New York: DEAREST ENEMY (1925) of Rodgers and Hart, in my opinion the closest to a Gilbert and Sullivan work (which, by the way, G&S called operas) created by an American set of writers. But I digress. Operetta, all the way back to its ballad opera roots in THE BEGGAR'S OPERA, had its satiric side, but like musical theatre overall, it developed sundry appellations to reflect its intent: opera-bouffe, opera-comique, operette (this just in France alone!). I pulled out some CDs to see how things were credited:
CHARLES LECOCQ: LE COEUR ET LA MAIN (opera-comique)
GIROFLE GIROFLA (opera bouffe)
LE BARBIER DE TROUVILLE (bluette-bouffe)
JACQUES OFFENBACH: ORPHEE AUX ENFERS (opera bouffon)
MONSIEUR ET MADAME DENIS (operette)
LA BELLE HELENE (opera bouffe)
LES BERGERS (opera-comique)
L'ISLE DE TULIPITAN (bouffonnerie)
LA VIE PARISIENNE (piece melee de chant)
LE VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE (opera-feerie)
LE ROI CAROTTE (opera bouffe-feerie)
BA-TA-CLAN (Chinoiserie musicale)
ANDRE MESSAGER: L'AMOUR MASQUE (comedie musicale)
MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE (operette romantique)
VERONIQUE (opera-comique)
In France alone, by 1925, operetta had a lot of the musical theatre territory covered. Offenbach, considered the father of operetta, like Victor Herbert in America, covered all bases (Offenbach authored several revues), but Herbert wrote several film scores as well. LA VIE PARISIENNE, in spite of the fact it's a very musical piece still seems to me a musical comedy with a farcical spirit in its book closer to the Kern-Wodehouse-Bolton musicals, especially OH BOY! and OH, LADY! LADY!
American operetta certainly runs a gamut as well, from the North African DESERT SONG to the coast of Maine in CAROUSEL. I find both Hammerstein and Alan Jay Lerner happier in operetta language, so I'd consider BRIGADOON, MY FAIR LADY, CAMELOT, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I, and THE SOUND OF MUSIC all in the operetta corner. OKLAHOMA! (and all these decisions are based totally on how the piece strikes my ear and not on a lot of facts that Gerald Bordman cannot apply consistently) strikes me as a musical comedy, even with Judd's death, and I find its score as sparkling and fresh today as it was 60 years ago.
This column's long enough. I have to start examining operettas of the past 50 years!
