Rudolf Friml
Encyclopedia
Rudolf Friml was a composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 of operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

s, musicals, songs and piano pieces, as well as a pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

. After musical training and a brief performing career in his native Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, Friml moved to the United States, where he became a composer. His best-known works are Rose-Marie
Rose-Marie
Rose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story takes place in the Canadian Rockies and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon...

 and The Vagabond King
The Vagabond King
The Vagabond King is a 1925 operetta by Rudolf Friml in four acts, with a book and lyrics by Brian Hooker and William H. Post, based upon Justin Huntly McCarthy's 1901 romantic play If I Were King...

, each of which enjoyed success on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 and in London and were adapted for film.

Early life

Born in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now capital of the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

, Friml showed aptitude for music at an early age. He entered the Prague Conservatory
Prague Conservatory
Prague Conservatory, sometimes also Prague Conservatoire, in Czech Pražská konzervatoř, is a Czech secondary school in Prague dedicated to teaching the arts of music and theater acting.- Instruction :...

 in 1895, where he studied the piano and composition with Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

. Friml was expelled from the conservatory in 1901 for performing without permission. In Prague and later in America he composed and published songs, piano pieces and other music, including the prize-winning set of songs, Pisne Zavisovy. The last of these, Za tichych noci, later became the basis for a famous film in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1941.

After the conservatory, Friml took a position as accompanist to the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist Jan Kubelík
Jan Kubelík
Jan Kubelík was a Czech violinist and composer.-Biography:He was born in Michle . His father, a gardener by occupation, was an amateur violinist. He taught his two sons the violin and after discovering the talent of Jan, who was aged five at the time, arranged for him to study with Karel Weber and...

. He toured with Kubelik twice in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 (1901–02 and 1904) and moved there permanently in 1906, apparently with the support of the Czech singer Emmy Destinn
Emmy Destinn
Emmy Destinn was a Czech operatic soprano with a strong and soaring lyric-dramatic voice. She had a career both in Europe and at the New York Metropolitan Opera.- Biography :...

. His first post in New York was as a repetiteur at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

. He had made his American piano debut at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 in 1904, and premiered his Piano Concerto in B-Major in 1906 with the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

 under the baton
Baton (conducting)
A baton is a stick that is used by conductors primarily to exaggerate and enhance the manual and bodily movements associated with directing an ensemble of musicians. They are generally made of a light wood, fiberglass or carbon fiber which is tapered to a grip shaped like a pear, drop, cylinder...

 of Walter Damrosch. He settled for a brief time in Los Angeles where he married Mathilda Baruch (1909). They had two children, Charles Rudolf (Jr.) (1910) and Marie Lucille (1911). His second marriage was to Blanch Betters, an actress who had appeared in the chorus of Friml's musical Katinka; his third was to actress Elsie Lawson (who played the maid in Friml's Glorianna, and by whom he had a son William); and his fourth and final marriage was to Kay Wong Ling. The first three marriages ended in divorce.

The Firefly and early operettas

One of the most popular theatrical forms in the early decades of the 20th century in America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 was the operetta, and its most famous composer was Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

-born Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

. It was announced in 1912 that operetta diva Emma Trentini
Emma Trentini
Emma Trentini was an Italian soprano opera singer who came to the United States in December 1906.-Early life:She was from Mantova, Italy . Her parents were poor and could not afford to give her money to attain an operatic career. At the age of 12 she was welcomed into the church choir of Mantova...

 would be starring in a new operetta on Broadway by Herbert with lyricist
Lyricist
A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...

 Otto Harbach
Otto Harbach
Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies...

 entitled The Firefly
The Firefly (operetta)
The Firefly is the first operetta written by composer Rudolf Friml, with a libretto by Otto Harbach. The story concerns a young girl, who is a street singer. She disguises herself and serves as a cabin boy on a ship to Bermuda, where she falls in love...

. Shortly before the writing of the operetta, Trentini appeared in a special performance of Herbert's Naughty Marietta
Naughty Marietta (operetta)
Naughty Marietta is an operetta in two acts, with libretto by Rida Johnson Young and music by Victor Herbert. Set in New Orleans in 1780, it tells how Captain Richard Warrington is commissioned to unmask and capture a notorious French pirate calling himself "Bras Priqué" – and how he is helped and...

 conducted by Herbert himself. When Trentini refused to sing "Italian Street Song" for the encore
Encore (concert)
An encore is an additional performance added to the end of a concert, from the French "encore", which means "again", "some more"; multiple encores are not uncommon. Encores originated spontaneously, when audiences would continue to applaud and demand additional performance from the artist after the...

, an enraged Herbert stormed out of the orchestra pit
Orchestra pit
An orchestra pit is the area in a theater in which musicians perform. Orchestral pits are utilized in forms of theatre that require music or in cases when incidental music is required...

 refusing any further work with Trentini.

Arthur Hammerstein
Arthur Hammerstein
Arthur Hammerstein , was the son of Oscar Hammerstein I and uncle of Oscar Hammerstein II, was an opera producer and one of the writers of the song "Because of You," a major hit for Tony Bennett in 1951. Hammerstein wrote the song in 1940. It was used in the film I Was an American Spy...

, the operetta's sponsor, frantically began to search for another composer. Not finding any other theatre composer who could compose as well as Herbert, Hammerstein settled on the almost unknown Friml because of his classical training. After a month of work, Friml produced the score for what would be his first theatrical success. After tryouts in Syracuse, New York
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...

, The Firefly opened at the Lyric Theatre on December 2, 1912 to a warm reception by both the audience and the critics. The production moved to the Casino Theatre after Christmas, where it ran until March 15, 1913, for a total of 120 performances. After The Firefly, Friml produced three more operettas that were successful, with longer runs than The Firefly, although they are not as enduringly successful. These were High Jinks (1913), Katinka (1915) and You're in Love (1917). He also contributed songs to a musical in 1915 entitled The Peasant Girl.

Trentini was named as a co-respondent in Friml's divorce from his first wife in 1915, and evidence was introduced that they were having an affair.

Friml's greatest successes

Friml wrote his most famous operettas in the 1920s. In 1924, he wrote Rose-Marie
Rose-Marie
Rose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story takes place in the Canadian Rockies and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon...

. This operetta, on which Friml collaborated with lyricists Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...

 and Otto Harbach
Otto Harbach
Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies...

 and co-composer Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart
Herbert Stothart was a song writer, arranger, conductor, and composer. He was also nominated for nine Oscars, winning Best Original Score for The Wizard of Oz.-Biography:...

, was a hit worldwide and a few of the songs from it also became hits including "The Mounties" and "Indian Love Call
Indian Love Call
"Indian Love Call" is a song from Rose-Marie, a 1924 operetta-style Broadway musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II...

". The use of murder as part of the plot was ground-breaking among operettas and musical theatre pieces at the time.

After Rose-Marie's success came two other operettas, The Vagabond King
The Vagabond King
The Vagabond King is a 1925 operetta by Rudolf Friml in four acts, with a book and lyrics by Brian Hooker and William H. Post, based upon Justin Huntly McCarthy's 1901 romantic play If I Were King...

 in 1925, with lyrics by Brian Hooker
Brian Hooker
Brian S. Hooker, PhD, PE, is a bioengineer and the team leader for the High Throughput Biology Team and Operations Manager of the DOE Genomics: Genomes to Life Center for Molecular and Cellular Systems at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory . Hooker also is credited as a co-inventor for...

 and W.H. Post, and The Three Musketeers
The Three Musketeers (musical)
The Three Musketeers is a musical with a book by William Anthony McGuire, lyrics by Clifford Grey and P. G. Wodehouse, and music by Rudolf Friml. It is based on the classic 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas, père....

 in 1928, with lyrics by P.G. Wodehouse and Clifford Grey
Clifford Grey
Clifford Grey was an English songwriter, actor, librettist and Olympic medalist. His birth name was Percival Davis, and he was also known as Clifford Gray, Tippi Gray, Tippi Grey, Tippy Gray and Tippy Grey.As a writer, Grey contributed prolifically to West End and Broadway shows, as librettist and...

, based on Dumas's famous swashbuckling novel. In addition, Friml contributed to Florenz Ziegfeld's
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...

 Follies
Follies
Follies is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The story concerns a reunion in a crumbling Broadway theatre, scheduled for demolition, of the past performers of the "Weismann's Follies," a musical revue , that played in that theatre between the World Wars...

 of 1921 and 1923.

Friml also wrote music for many films during the 1930s, often songs adapted from previous work. The Vagabond King
The Vagabond King (1930 film)
The Vagabond King is a 1930 American musical operetta film photographed entirely in two-color Technicolor. The plot of the film was based on the 1925 operetta of the same name, which was based on the 1901 play If I Were King by Justin Huntly McCarthy. The play told the story of a renegade French...

, Rose-Marie, and The Firefly were all made into films and included at least some of Friml's music. Oddly enough, his operetta version of The Three Musketeers
The Three Musketeers
The Three Musketeers is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, first serialized in March–July 1844. Set in the 17th century, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard...

 was never filmed, despite the fact that the novel itself has been filmed many times - once as a musical with Don Ameche
Don Ameche
Don Ameche was an Academy Award winning American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years.-Personal life:...

 and The Ritz Brothers. Like his contemporary, Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
David Ivor Davies , better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer, singer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. Born into a musical family, his first successes were as a songwriter...

, Friml was sometimes ridiculed for the sentimental and insubstantial nature of his compositions and was often dubbed as trite. Friml was also criticized for the old-fashioned, Old World sentiments found in his works. By the end of the 1930s, Friml had fallen out of fashion.

Later years and legacy

Friml's last stage musical was Music Hath Charms in 1934. He composed the music for the 1947 film Northwest Outpost, starring Nelson Eddy
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...

 and Ilona Massey
Ilona Massey
Ilona Massey was a film, stage and radio performer.-Early life and career:...

. A few of Friml's works have seen revivals
Revival (play)
A revival is a restaging of a stage production after its original run has closed. New material may be added. A filmed version is said to be an adaptation and requires writing of a screenplay....

 on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

, these include a 1943 production of The Vagabond King and a 1984 production of The Three Musketeers. "The Donkey Serenade" from the film version of The Firefly, "The Mounties" and "Indian Love Call" are still frequently heard, often in romantic parody or comic situations. His piano music is also often performed.

In a November 1939 issue of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

 magazine, Friml claimed that Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

 communicated to him through a Ouija board
Ouija
The Ouija board also known as a spirit/fire key board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0-9, the words "yes", "no", "hello" and "goodbye", and other symbols and words are sometimes also added to help personalize the board...

. He said that Herbert told him, "Play five notes." After he played them he said Herbert responded, "Quite charming." In 1967, Friml performed in a special concert at the Curran Theatre
Curran Theatre
The Curran Theatre is located in San Francisco and was named by its first owner, Homer Curran. The theatre is currently owned by Carole Shorenstein Hays and is operated by SHN - Overview :...

 in San Francisco. He began the concert with a piano improvisation, then played special arrangements of his own compositions as well as composers who had influenced him. He even played Dvořák's Humoresque as a special tribute to his teacher. He also appeared on Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk
Lawrence Welk was an American musician, accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955 to 1982...

's television program.

His two sons also worked as musicians. Rudolf Jr. was a big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

 leader in the 1930s and 40s, and William, a son from Friml's third marriage, was a composer and arranger in Hollywood. In 1969, Friml was celebrated by Ogden Nash
Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...

 on the occasion of his 90th birthday in a couplet which ended: "I trust your conclusion and mine are similar: 'Twould be a happier world if it were Frimler." Similarly, satiric songwriter Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, mathematician and polymath. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater...

 made a reference to Friml on his first album, Songs by Tom Lehrer
Songs By Tom Lehrer
-Production and release history:Songs by Tom Lehrer was recorded in a single one hour session on January 22, 1953 at the TransRadio studio in Boston for the total studio cost of $15. The first pressing was an issue of 400 copies, produced at Lehrer's own expense in the 10" LP record format. Records...

 (1953). The song "The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz" includes the lyric, "Your lips were like wine (if you'll pardon the simile) / The music was lovely, and quite Rudolf Friml-y."

Friml died in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 in 1972 and was interred in the "Court of Honor" at Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale
Forest Lawn Memorial Park is a privately owned cemetery in Glendale, California. It is the original location of Forest Lawn, a chain of cemeteries in Southern California. The land was formerly part of Providencia Ranch.-History:...

 in Glendale, California
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...

. On August 18, 2007, a death notice in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

 reported that Kay Wong Ling Friml (born March 16, 1913), Friml's last wife, died on August 9, 2007 and would be buried with him in Forest Lawn.

Works

  • Pisne Zavisovy (1906) and other songs
  • The Firefly
    The Firefly (operetta)
    The Firefly is the first operetta written by composer Rudolf Friml, with a libretto by Otto Harbach. The story concerns a young girl, who is a street singer. She disguises herself and serves as a cabin boy on a ship to Bermuda, where she falls in love...

     (1912)
  • High Jinks (1913)
  • Katinka
    Katinka (operetta)
    Katinka is an operetta in three acts composed by Rudolf Friml to a libretto by Otto Harbach. It was first performed at the Park Theatre in Morristown, New Jersey on December 2, 1915 with May Naudain in the title role and subsequently received its Broadway premiere on December 23, 1915 at the 44th...

     (1915)
  • The Peasant Girl (1915) - contributor.
  • You're in Love (1917)
  • Kitty Darlin (1917)
  • Sometime (1918)
  • Glorianna (1918)
  • Tumble In (1919)
  • June Love (1921)
  • Ziegfeld Follies of 1921 - contributor

  • Cinders (1923)
  • Ziegfeld Follies of 1923 - contributor
  • Rose-Marie
    Rose-Marie
    Rose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story takes place in the Canadian Rockies and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon...

     (1924)
  • The Vagabond King
    The Vagabond King
    The Vagabond King is a 1925 operetta by Rudolf Friml in four acts, with a book and lyrics by Brian Hooker and William H. Post, based upon Justin Huntly McCarthy's 1901 romantic play If I Were King...

     (1925)
  • Ziegfeld's Revue "No Foolin'" (1926)
  • The Wild Rose (1926)
  • White Eagle (1927)
  • The Three Musketeers
    The Three Musketeers (musical)
    The Three Musketeers is a musical with a book by William Anthony McGuire, lyrics by Clifford Grey and P. G. Wodehouse, and music by Rudolf Friml. It is based on the classic 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas, père....

     (1928)
  • The Lottery Bride
    The Lottery Bride
    The Lottery Bride is a movie musical starring Jeanette MacDonald, John Garrick, Zasu Pitts, and Joe E. Brown. The film was produced by Arthur Hammerstein, based on the musical by Rudolf Friml, and released by United Artists....

    (1930 film)
  • Luana (1930)
  • Music Hath Charms (1934)
  • Northwest Outpost (1947 film)


External links

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