Music History Exemption Part One! Flashcards
1
Q
Humpty Dumpty Series
A
- Most successful American Pantomime
- Began in 1868 - 483 performances
- George Fox in the title role - played Humpty more than 1,400x –> SYPHILIS
- Humpty, et al. were harlequinade characters
- Ballet was staged by David Costa (choreo. of The Black Crook)
- Score largely consisted of ‘recycled’ Offenbach and old music hall tunes.
- Set new long-run record, inspired series of sequels.
2
Q
Floradora
A
- First theatrical sensation of the new century
- Owen Hall, Leslie Stewart, Paul Rubens
- 1899 in London - 455 performances; 1900 in NY - 553 performances
- Woman seeking romance and her stolen inheritance.
- Originally rejected in NY by producers as ‘too British,’ but when it was picked up, it made millions.
- Revived on bway in 1902, ‘05, ‘20
3
Q
The Merry Widow
A
- 1905 (Vienna), 1907 (Bway - 416 performances)
- Composer - Franz Lehar (Austro-Hungarian)
- Libretto - Victor Leon, Leo Stein
- ***‘Seamlessly integrated masterpiece’ –> every song and dialogue contributed to the plot
- Young widow re-ignites lost love with playboy nobleman -
- First “I love you but not telling you” trick.
- So inexplicably popular, several Shubert companies toured the US, and a full-length parody ran in NY. (Also London, Berlin)
- Most successful score sold
- Increased demand for romantic Viennese operettas.
4
Q
Very Good Eddie
A
- 1915 - 341 performances
- One of the ‘Princess Theatre musicals’ (created at the Princess Theatre) *Small 299 seats= naturalism
- Comstock - producer of theater
- Book - Guy Bolton
- *Music - Jerome Kern
- Focused on characters and settings that would be familiar to Bway audiences, with characters facing credible challenges. Naturalistic, seemingly informal style.
- Two honeymooning couples who get into innocent misunderstandings on a Hudson River steamboat.
5
Q
Gilbert and Sullivan
A
William S. Gilbert 1836-1911 - was an unsuccessful attorney who won attention for his humorous verses in popular magazines.
Arthur S. Sullivan 1842-1900 - studied classically and wrote a series of cantatas and tunes to the hymn “Onward Christian Soldier” that made him the most celebrated composer in Britain. (lol)
- The two first collaborated on a flop, “Thespis” 1871, but Producer Richard D. Carte brought them back together to work on a one-act “Trial By Jury” in 1875 and the partnership stuck.
- they self described their works as comic-operas, but most sources give them the label of operetta and many are still performed in the canon of musical theater today: “H.M.S Pinafore 1878, Pirates of Penzance 1880, Iolanthe 1882, The Mikado 1885, Yeoman of the Guard 1888, The Gondoliers 1889.”
- Gilbert’s lyrics are known for being hilarious and and his pattern songs are intricate. His plots are often topsy turvy view reality and spoofs everything from governmental stupidity to social pretension
- *Notable because they introduced the integrated musical (songs further plot, flow between dialogue and song, songs express characters and their views, dances advance plot, orchestra and underscoring parallels or compliments the action) (although they were billed as a comic-opera), They had a process together which included many revisions in the name of the plot.
6
Q
Jacques Offenbach
A
- 1819-1880 Often called the “Grandfather of the modern musical”. Was a successful cellist and conductor before he began composing for theaters. Started Patter. BIRTH of operetta.
- 1st larger work was “Orpheus in the Underworld” followed by a long string of hits: “La belle Helene, La Grand Duchesse de Gerolstein, La Perichole, Les Brigonds”
- used songs to develop characters and propel plot action…sort of the birth of the early book musical.
- plots of political and social satire (usually). Broadway season at the time saw at least 12 of his works per season and his one grand opera “The Tales of Hoffmann” is still in the opera repertory today.
- 1st to be translated into multiple languages, melodies became worldwide favorites.
- *Notable because he made musical theater an important art form world-wide in the late 1800s. He inspired Gilbert and Sullivan and Johann Strauss II, and the birth of the book musical/operetta/patter!!)
(SIDE NOTE: these shorter satirical works are generally regarded as operettas AND musicals by several sources, one source suggests opera bouffe or something else opera-y…perhaps not that one. )
7
Q
Johan Strauss II
A
- 1852-1899 The most popular composer of his time. Inspired by Offenbach.
- Strauss inspired by Offenbach’s collaboraters: Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy (librettists).
- satirical - Viennese society
- wrote music for 15 operettas, several which became international favorites.
- “Die Fledermaus” perhaps his best known work is still performed world-wide.
- Some of music has been used posthumously in stage and screen productions: “Weiner Blut” 1899, “Waltzer aus Wein” 1930, and the Stage and Screen versions of “The Great Waltz”
8
Q
Cabin in the Sky
A
- Composer - Vernon Duke
- Lyrics - John LaTouche
- 1940 - 156 performances
- Duke and LaTouche were among those determined to ‘make the Broadway musical grow up.’
- Parable of an angel/demon in a tug of war for a black man’s soul.
- Great reviews, poor box office return.
9
Q
Variety/Vaudeville Revue
A
- Popular from early 1880s - early 1930
- Filled a gap in American entertainment.
- People had spare cash and weekly leisure time, but Variety was often too coarse for women and children.
- Tried to bridge social gap that divided upper/lower classes
- Tony Pastor created first successful ‘clean’ variety.
- Ben Franklin Keith, Edward F. Albee created policy of continuous multiple daily performance, called it ‘vaudeville.’
- Performances could be ‘one-nighters’ or many a week depending on house size and performer popularity.
- Made up of separate, unrelated acts grouped on a common bill.
- Could included singers/dancers (nearly always), classical musicians, comedians, trained animals, magician, acrobats, jugglers, one-act plays/scenes, celebrities, etc.
10
Q
Annuals
A
- A form of revue that recurs on a yearly basis with different material.
- Examples: Ziegfeld’s Follies, Greenwich Village Follies, The Passing Show, etc.
11
Q
Burlesque
A
- Began as lower/middle class entertainment in the 1840s ‘burlesquing’ or making fun of plays, musicals, and habits of the upper class.
- 1860s, British burlesque began relying on scantily clad women.
- Badmouthing from the self-righteous HELPED the form rather than hurting it in late 1800s.
- Michael Leavitt created a 3-act format much like Minstrel Shows: 1. Ensemble songs/gags in formal wear 2. Olio with variety performances 3. Complete 1-act musical parody.
- Circuits arose - like Vaudeville, but were called wheels.
- Richest legacy was the COMEDY - headliner known as ‘top banana’
- Abbot and Costello were burlesque comedians (Who’s On First)
12
Q
Keith and Albee
A
- Creators of Vaudeville
- Began in 1883
- Built a chain of theaters in the northeast and used format of ‘continuous multiple daily performances’
13
Q
The Shubert Brothers
A
- Responsible for the breaking up of The Theater Syndicate’s monopoly in NY
- Largely responsible for the establishment of the NYC Broadway theater district.
- By 1924, owned 86 theaters across the US, and owned/operated/managed or booked over 1,000 theaters across the country.
- Staged many revues.
14
Q
Cabin in the Sky
A
- Composer - Vernon Duke
- Lyrics - John LaTouche
- 1940 - 156 performances
- Duke and LaTouche were among those determined to ‘make the Broadway musical grow up.’
- Parable of an angel/demon in a tug of war for a black man’s soul.
- Great reviews, poor box office return.
15
Q
Variety/Vaudevillrevue
A
- Filled a gap in American entertainment.
- People had spare cash and weekly leisure time, but Variety was often too coarse for women and children.
- Tried to bridge social gap that divided upper/lower classes
- Tony Pastor created first successful ‘clean’ variety.
- Ben Franklin Keith, Edward F. Albee created policy of continuous multiple daily performance, called it ‘vaudeville.’
- Dumb Act: Silent: Acrobats or animal acts
- Singers/Dancers: singing sister” or “dancing brother” act Gum Sisters/Nicholas Brothers
- Comedy sketch or one-act play. These could be old melodramas with unknown casts or new works featuring top Broadway star
- novelty act or eccentric dance act was thrown into the fourth spot
- This spot was reserved for rising stars or falling ones, to close out the first half of the program with a solid crowd pleaser.(FIRST HALF CLOSER)
(intermission) - After intermission came a “big” act involving a large set – choirs, novelty orchestras and top animal acts were typical choices for this slot.
- “Next to closing” was the star spot
- The “closing” spot was reserved for short films – or annoying acts that might encourage patrons to leave before the next show. A clunky one-man band or a grating singer were typical closers: Lillian Russel (closing Act) - large figure, lots of food. Webber and Fields - Mike and Myers skit.
16
Q
Evangeline
A
1874 - A Boston creation that was billed as an Extravaganza while it’s sheet music listed it as opera bouffe, and was treated by critics as a burlesque..which it actually was.
- title from Longfellow’s poem, in NY it was a surprise success and so it went back to Boston for a more lavish production/version and returned to NY even more successful.
- trouser role for women, and the obese clown woman was played by a man.
- authored by J. Cheever Goodwin who was the first professional librettist to leave his mark on American Musical theater (Bordman Text)
- musically was billed as solos, duets, trios, full chorus with all original works by Edward E. Rice.
- The show was incoherent, but lively. Family loved the spouting whale, dancing cow, and comedian. The “Jumble of Delights” toured the US for over a decade and periodically returned to NY. The 1885 revival ran for 251 performances and was the Broadway debut of two future stars: Fay Templeton and Lillian Russell.
17
Q
Little Johnny Jones
A
- 1904 (with a few revivals later)
- A George M. Cohan piece where he served as composer/lyricist, author/librettist, producer, director, and star. He also had tailor made roles for his father, mother, and wife. The score included songs like “Yankee Doodle Boy” and “Give My Regards to Broadway”.
- a patriotic and sentimental story of an American jockey who is falsley accused throwing the english derby. He billed it as a musical play…a play with music…Most critics were harsh and belittled his attempts at seriousness.
- the shows dimensions were more human than not and the songs were a telling adjunct to the story line.
- the show had a transformation that served as the dramatic climax instead of straight up spectacle a la The Black Crook.
- Cohan changed the definition of the leading man and also broke out of the box that had long restricted male dancers.
- Show made two return trips to NY on it’s year-long tour.
18
Q
Burlesque
A
- Began as lower/middle class entertainment in the 1840s ‘burlesquing’ or making fun of plays, musicals, and habits of the upper class.
- Would tour on wheels (circuits) as a troupe, not individually.
- 1860s, British burlesque began relying on scantily clad women. Didn’t get dirty here until popularity died down. (as an attempt to save it)
19
Q
Keith and Albee
A
- Creators of Vaudeville
- Began in 1883
- Built a chain of theaters in the northeast and used format of ‘continuous multiple daily performances’
20
Q
The Schubert Brothers
A
- Responsible for the breaking up of The Theater Syndicate’s monopoly in NY
- **Largely responsible for the establishment of the NYC Broadway theater district.
- By 1924, owned 86 theaters across the US, and owned/operated/managed or booked over 1,000 theaters across the country.
- popular revues, Ziegfeld wanted to challenge.
21
Q
Florenz Ziegfeld
A
- Embellished his life for publicity - facts are difficult to pinpoint
- Popularized the revue with his 1907 follies, based on Paris’ Folies Bergere.
- Name ‘Follies’ based on the various ‘follies’ or foibles of the culture at the time.
- Because they were respectable, larger than a cabaret and more elaborate than vaudeville, the Follies were considered the ultimate variety show.
- **Created more than 20 versions, and set new technical and artistic standards for pro theaters in America.
= Largescale Broadway
22
Q
Klaw and Erlanger
A
- Theater owner contemporaries of the Schubert Bros.
- Founders of the Theaterical Syndicate, a theater monopoly, in 1896.
- **Funded Ziegfeld’s Follies to compete with the Schuberts’ lavish revues.
23
Q
The Girl from Utah
A
1914-1915 season
- the plot was about an American girl fleeing to London rather than become a rich Mormon’s latest wife. Score was blah so producer Charles Frohman hired Jerome Kern and veteran lyricist Herbert Reynolds to write five new numbers for the first act.
- Notable because Jerome Kern, a native New Yorker, got his start amending the scores of imported British musicals. British high society rarely arrived at a theatre before intermission, London musicals of the early 1900s often saved their best material for the second act and filled their early scenes with forgettable fluff. These shows had to be revised for New York audiences, who tended to arrive for the first curtain and leave at intermission if the first act was not up to snuff.
- One number - “They Didn’t Believe Me” eclipsed everything in the show’s original British score and made Kern the hottest new composer on Broadway and changed the course of MT.
24
Q
Leave it to Jane
A
1917-1918 season.
- After Kern enjoyed much success at the Princess Theater british lyricist-librettist P.G. Wodehouse joined the team and they began several other hit shows.
- Leave it to Jane opened at Longacre Theater while another previous show was still enjoying a long run at the Princess.
- “A college president’s daughter woos a rival school’s star quarterback and loses her heart to him in the process. The catchy title tune and the comic “Cleopatterer” were highlights. A cozy 1959 revival Off-Broadway captured enough period charm to run for a whopping 928 performances.”
- seems notable because of Kern and the princess theater shows which were very successful with traits of small casts in realistic settings.
25
Q
No, No, Nanette
A
- 1925-1926 season Composer Vincent Youmans and lyricists Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach
- had a rather short broadway run but had already run in Chicago for a year and sent out road companies before the NY opening. Producers after discouragement at Baltimore recast the show and had the writers come up with more material which turned into two of the hits from the show: “Tea for Two” and “ I Want To Be Happy”.
- Plot centered on fun Manhattan heiress who gives her boyfriend the cold shoulder and runs off to Atlantic City for a weekend. By the final curtain, Nanette and her man are reunited, and her bible publishing foster father mends his philandering ways.
- 3 screen adaptations and a broadway revival in 1971
- significant I think for the revision process, pre-broadway out of town trials, and the fact that several of the songs were brought over from previous Youmans shows
26
Q
Of Thee I Sing
A
1931-1932 season-was the longest running Broadway book musical of the 1930s.
The Gershwins worked with script writers George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind on this satirical tale of a President who gets elected (and almost impeached) because he marries the woman he loves. Several scenes were set to music in a semi-operatic format, but the score was pure musical comedy.
-Of Thee I Sing was the first musical ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama
27
Q
The Cradle Will Rock
A
1937-1938 season - had sort of an odd start legally
- It was dropped as a WPA project in Washington and was about to be done in NY in June when an injunction prevented the actors from performing. So John Houseman and Orson Welles hired the Venice Theater and march the cast and patrons 20 blocks north to it. Then the musicians union was not on board so the show’s creator Marc Blitztein played his score from an on-stage piano. While the actors to comply with the injunction bought tickets, sat with the audience and performed the show from their seats. It was performed at the Venice 19 times and eventually moved to the Mercury for a regular run.
- The musical is a Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed and includes a panoply of societal figures. Set in “Steeltown, USA”, it follows the efforts of Larry Foreman to unionize the town’s workers and combat wicked, greedy businessman Mr. Mister, who controls the town’s factory, press, church and social organization. The piece is almost entirely sung-through, giving it many operatic qualities, although it included popular song styles of the time.
- An abridged version of the production was recorded and released in 1938, the first original cast recording ever made.
(Wikipedia…)
28
Q
P.T. Barnum
A
1810-1891 (Phineas Taylor Barnum)
-Barnum was an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician (mayor of Bridgeport CT in 1875, founder of their hospital), he said of himself, “I am a showman by profession…and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me” and his personal aim was “to put money in his own coffers” (Wiki)
- In 1842, P.T. opened the American Museum on lower Broadway in New York City as a place for family entertainment, enlightenment and instructive amusement. It became a shrine for advancing public knowledge of fine arts, music, literature and the marvels of nature, showcasing natural curiosities and artistic and historic exhibitions. The museum’s success only grew and expanded - was very popular.
- In 1842 he also met a tiny four year old boy…and “After seeing him and talking with him, I am once determined to secure his services from his parents and to exhibit him in public.” So he displayed him and billed him as Tom Thumb, an 11 year old (25” tall and 15 lbs). Together they toured the US and Europe and made a fortune. The kid’s salary went from $3 to $7 to $25 a week.
- He also toured European soprano Jenny Lind which also became highly successful and everyone’s salaries were increased.
(Barnum Museum where I’m getting all of this says that Barnum held theater and entertainment in high social regard and used them as venues for reformation, furthering his ideals of theater going as moral, benevolent, educational, and entertaining. Seems notable as a grand innovator in variety and family entertainment. It wasn’t until later in his career - 1870- he was approached about a joint circus venture which first opened in Brooklyn in 1871.)
29
Q
T.D. Rice
A
1808-1860 - (Timothy Dartmouth) minstrel, singer, dancer.
-In in 1828 a Louisville street dancer inspired him to put on blackface make-up and perform of an old Negro singing “Jump Jim Crow.”
- Audiences loved it and he became internationally famous.
- He played Jim Crow in a series of 1830s burlesque musicals that he called “Ethiopian Operas.”
- his unprecedented success inspired the rise of minstrelsy. He appeared with several minstrel troupes in the 1840s, but was bankrupt by the time paralysis led to his death at age 58.
