Operette

In a play within a play (an Edwardian musical comedy, The Model Maid), Liesl Haren, an aging Viennese operetta star, has another chance at stardom.

Young Rozanne Grey, a member of the sextet of The Model Maid, falls in love with Nigel Vaynham, a nobleman serving in the army. Liesl counsels the younger woman not to marry him. Rozanne gains the leading role and stardom, but Nigel returns to the army, realising that a marriage to an actress would destroy his social reputation.

 

 

 

 

Prologue The Opening Chorus Pom-pom Countess Mitzi Dearest love Foolish virgins The stately homes of England Where are the songs we sung? The island of Bollamazoo Prologue, Act II Sing for joy My dear Miss Dale Operette The NCMI, drawing on performing statistics from the publishers and the Performing Rights Society, ranks "The Stately Homes of England" as among Coward's ten most popular songs.

Operette 1) CD: EMI 7243 5 21808 2 ('Noël Coward 'The Great Shows') Operette (Fritzi Massary with Sextet), Countess Mitzi (Fritzi Massary with Chorus), Where Are The Songs We Sung?* (Peggy Wood) Operette with Fritzi Massary with Sextet 2) CD: Flapper PAST CD 7080 ('The Songs of Noël Coward') Dearest Love (*Peggy Wood), The Stately Homes of England (Hugh French, Ross Landon, John Gatrell, Kenneth Carten) The Stately Homes of England All the above His Majesty's Theatre Orch. cond. Benjamin Frankel. Orchestrations by Charles Prentice (*but with some embellishments, possibly by Frankel?) [25 March 1938] *items also on CD: PLATCD 118

Ivor Brown in The Sketch:

"It is odd to think nowadys that Mr. Noël Coward was once regarded as the spirit of flaming and audacious youth. His new piece is modishly nostalgic, gently romantic, and shows a definite dislike, except in one song, for smartness and brilliance. Operette, at His Majesty's, is not a work of scholarship, except in so far as it deals (most amusingly) with the archtectural atmospheric, and sanitary details of the 'Stately Homes of England'. But for the rest it can be accepted with calm at the Athenaeum Club, whither I am told Mr Coward has gone to join eminents of College, Church and State. Mr. Coward now tells the tale of the officer and the actress, who, at risk of breaking her heart, refused to ruin his career and to embarras his family uxoriosly implanting herself, as he demanded in the full glory of a nobelman's seat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The stars were Fritzi Massary and Peggy Wood with strong support from Griffith Jones and Irene Vanbrugh.

Cast:

Maisie Welbey – Phyllis Monkman
Eddie Gosling – Edward Cooper
Grace Menteith – Pamela Randell
Rozanne Gray – Peggy Wood
Liesl Haren – Fritzi Massary
Paul Trevor – Max Oldaker
Elsie Jewell – Muriel Baron
Nigel Vaynham – Griffith Jones
David Messiter – Peter Vokes
Lady Messiter – Irene Vanbrugh

There were 35 speaking parts in the musical and in the original production there was a company of 80 performers.