The Student Prince
Encyclopedia
The Student Prince is an 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:...

 in four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg
Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...

 and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly
Dorothy Donnelly
Dorothy Donnelly was a stage actress, playwright, producer, librettist, and lyricist. She made famous the play Madame X on the Broadway stage in 1910 and in a 1916 silent film, the first filming of the story...

. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster
Wilhelm Meyer-Förster
Wilhelm Meyer-Förster a.k.a. Samar Gregorow was a German novelist and playwright.-Biography:...

's play Alt Heidelberg. The piece has elements of melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

 but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works. The plot is mostly faithful to its source.

It opened on December 2, 1924, at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre 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...

. The show was the most successful of Romberg's works, running for 608 performances, the longest-running Broadway show of the 1920s. Even the classic Show Boat
Show Boat
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...

, the most enduring musical of the 1920s, did not play as long - it ran for 572 performances. "Drinking Song", with its rousing chorus of "Drink! Drink! Drink!" was especially popular with theatergoers in 1924, as the United States was in the midst of Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...

. The operetta contains some of the most beautiful, yet gruelling, tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

s in the operetta repertoire, notably the Serenade ("Overhead the moon is beaming").

Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch was a German-born film director. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch."In 1947 he received an Honorary Academy Award for his...

 made a silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 also based on Förster's work, titled The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, also known as The Student Prince and Old Heidelberg, is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 1927 silent film based on a novel by Wilhelm Meyer-Förster. Ernst Lubitsch directed the picture...

, starring Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro was a Mexican leading man actor in Hollywood in the early 20th century. He was the next male "Sex Symbol" after the death of Rudolph Valentino...

 and Norma Shearer
Norma Shearer
Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...

. Its orchestral score did not use any of Romberg's score, although it did include Gaudeamus Igitur. The operetta was revived twice on Broadway – once in 1931 and again in 1943. Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza
right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....

's performance on the soundtrack of the 1954 MGM film The Student Prince
The Student Prince (film)
The Student Prince is a 1954 CinemaScope color film musical featuring, as the credits read, "the singing voice of Mario Lanza". Lanza had become embroiled in a bitter dispute with MGM during production and the studio dismissed him. Under the terms of the settlement with Lanza, MGM retained the...

, renewed the popularity of many of the songs. Composer Nicholas Brodszky and lyricist Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.-Biography:...

 wrote three new songs for the film. Two of these songs – "I'll Walk with God
I'll Walk with God
"I'll Walk with God" is a popular song with music by Nicholas Brodzsky and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, published in 1954. This song is best known from the movie The Student Prince, in which the title character, played by Edmund Purdom, but sung by tenor Mario Lanza, performs this song at the...

" and "Beloved", as well as "Serenade" – became closely associated with Lanza, although the role was played on screen by British actor Edmund Purdom
Edmund Purdom
Edmund Anthony Cutlar Purdom was a British actor.-Early life:Purdom was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England and educated at St. Augustine's Abbey School, Ramsgate, then by the Jesuits at St. Ignatius Grammar School and Welwyn Garden City Grammar School...

, who mimed to Lanza's recordings. The operetta was revived in the 1970s and 1980s by the Light Opera of Manhattan
Light Opera of Manhattan
Light Opera of Manhattan, known as LOOM, was an Off-Broadway repertory theatre company that produced light operas, including the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and European and American operettas, 52 weeks per year, in New York City between 1968 and 1989....

 and in 1988 by New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...

. In recent years, the operetta has been performed each summer at the Heidelberg Castle
Heidelberg Castle
The Heidelberg Castle is a famous ruin in Germany and landmark of Heidelberg. The castle ruins are among the most important Renaissance structures north of the Alps....

 Festival.

Prologue

Prince Karl Franz is heir to the (fictitious) German kingdom of Karlsberg. He has grown up fatherless, under rather gloomy military conditions of castle life ("By our bearing so sedate"). He has been educated by tutors, in particular, kindly Doctor Engel, who has taught him the songs of his alma mater, the venerable University of Heidelberg ("Golden Days"). Karl Franz has been promised in marriage, since childhood, to the Princess Margaret (Johanna in some versions), but he has never met her. His grandfather, King Ferdinand, sends him to the University incognito, to live as an ordinary student, and improve his social skills. Karl Franz sets off under the watchful eye of Doctor Engel, accompanied by his snooty valet Lutz, who has his own assistant, Hubert.

Act I

At Heidelberg, Herr Ruder keeps the rustic Inn of Three Gold Apples ("Garlands Bright"). His beautiful niece Kathie waits tables in the inn's beer-garden. The inn is very popular with the students, who come there to drink and sing ("Drink! Drink! Drink!", "To the Inn We're Marching"). Karl Franz, the finicky Lutz and Hubert arrive for the spring term and take rooms at the Three Gold Apples, to the delight of Engel and the disgust of Lutz ("In Heidelberg Fair", "Welcome to Prince"). He falls in love, almost at first sight, with Kathie, who returns his affection ("Deep in My Heart, Dear"). But he is a royal heir, and she is a commoner.

Karl Franz also makes friends with three students, Detlef, Lucas and von Asterberg, and shares the camaraderie of student life, with nights of enthusiastic drinking and singing ("Overhead the Moon is Beaming"). He joins their student corps
German Student Corps
Corps are the oldest still-existing kind of Studentenverbindung, Germany's traditional university corporations; their roots date back to the 15th century. The oldest corps still existing today was founded in 1789...

 ("Come Sir, Will You Join Our Noble Saxon Corps?").

Act II

As the term passes, Karl Franz and his friends continue to enjoy student life ("Farmer Jacob Lay-a-Snoring", "Students' Life"). By the end of the term, Karl Franz and Kathie are deeply in love.

But then Karl Franz receives a surprise visit from Princess Margaret and her mother. They bring news that the king is ill and commands the prince to return home for the ceremony of betrothal to the princess. After they leave, Karl Franz and Kathie consider eloping to Paris. But Doctor Engel and Count Von Mark (the prime minister of Karlsberg) remind the prince of his duty to his kingdom. Karl Franz reluctantly agrees to obey the king's command. He promises Kathie that he will return soon ("Farewell, Dear"). He takes leave of his friends ("Thoughts Will Come Back to Me"), and the students salute the University ("Gaudeamus Igitur").

Act III

Back in Karlsberg, two years pass, with Karl Franz unable to return to Heidelberg. His grandfather has died, and Karl Franz is now King. His life is bound up in court ceremony ("Waltz Ensemble"). Princess Margaret has also had a secret relationship with another man, Captain Tarnitz ("Just We Two"). But as King, Karl Franz must honor the betrothal to Margaret ("Gavotte"). Margaret knows that Karl Franz has long pined for an old love, and she has heard rumors that in Heidelberg, he fell in love with a tavernkeeper's niece.

Word arrives from Heidelberg that Doctor Engel has died there. Karl Franz is persuaded to visit Heidelberg for a brief reunion with his old friends, and he hopes to see Kathie again ("What Memories").

Act IV

Princess Margaret goes to Heidelberg first, and secretly visits Kathie. Margaret persuades her that for the good of the kingdom, she must break off with Karl Franz. They agree that Kathie will tell Karl Franz she is in love with another man and is going to marry him. Karl Franz will then finally be free to accept Margaret, who has come to love him. Meanwhile, the students of Heidelberg continue their merry ways ("Sing a Little Song", "To the Inn We're Marching (reprise)", "Overhead the Moon is Beaming (reprise)", "Come Boys, Let's All Be Gay Boys").

Karl Franz arrives, meets his old friends and visits Kathie. True to her promise, she tells him of her fictitious new love and plans to marry. Karl Franz resolves to marry Margaret without further delay, but Kathie will always be his true love ("Deep in My Heart Dear (reprise)").

Roles and original cast

  • Prince Karl Franz – Howard Marsh
    Howard Marsh
    Howard Marsh was a leading Broadway tenor of the 1920s. He created the role of Baron Franz Schober in Sigmund Romberg's operetta drawn from Schubert's life and music, Blossom Time, in 1921, and that of Prince Karl Franz in the original 1924 production of Sigmund Romberg's operetta The Student...

  • Dr. Engel (the Prince's Tutor) – Greek Evans
  • Kathie (niece of Ruder) – Ilse Marvenga
  • Ruder (Landlord of Inn of Three Gold Apples) – W. H. White
  • Lutz (valet to the Prince) – George Hassell
  • Princess Margaret (fiancee of Prince Karl Franz) – Roberta Beatty
  • Detlef (a student leader) – Raymond Marlowe
  • Von Asterberg (another student leader) – Paul Kleeman
  • Lucas (another student leader) – Frederic Wolff
  • Captain Tarnitz – John Coast
  • Gretchen (a young worker at the tavern) – Violet Carlson
  • Hubert (Lutz's valet) – Charles Williams
  • Countess Leyden (lady-in-waiting to the Princess) – Dagmar Oakland
  • Toni (a waiter and wine steward) – Adolph Link
  • Count Von Mark (prime minister of Karlsberg) – Fuller Mellish
  • Grand Duchess Anastasia (Princess Margaret's mother) – Florence Morrison
  • Rudolph – Lucius Metz
  • Baron Arnheim – Robert Calley
  • Captain of the Guard – Conrad Sparin
  • Nicolas – Fred Wilson

Musical numbers

Prologue
  • By Our Bearing So Sedate – Four Lackeys
  • Golden Days – Prince Karl Franz and Dr. Engel; in the 1954 film, sung by the Prince


Act 1
  • Garlands Bright – Ruder, Gretchen, Flower Girls and Waitresses
  • Drinking Song (Drink! Drink! Drink!) – Detlef and Students; in the 1954 film, Karl Franz and Students
  • To the Inn We're Marching – Detlef, Von Asterberg, Lucas, Kathie and Students
  • In Heidelberg Fair – Karl Franz and Dr. Engel
  • Welcome to Prince – Kathie, Ruder, Gretchen and Girls
  • Deep in My Heart, Dear – Karl Franz and Kathie
  • Serenade (Overhead the Moon is Beaming) – Karl Franz, Detlef, Lucas, Von Asterberg and Students
  • Come Sir, Will You Join Our Noble Saxon Corps – Karl Franz, Kathie, Detlef and Company


Act 2
  • Farmer Jacob (Lay-a-Snoring) – Detlef and Students
  • Students' Life – Karl Franz, Kathie, Dr. Engel, Gretchen, Detlef, Lucas, Von Asterberg and Eight Students
  • Farewell, Dear – Karl Franz and Kathie
  • Thoughts Will Come Back to Me – Karl Franz, Kathie and Students
  • Gaudeamus Igitur – Students


Act 3
  • Waltz Ensemble – Ambassadors, Officers, Countess Leyden, Baron Arnheim and Ladies of the Court
  • Just We Two – Princess, Captain Tarnitz and Officers; in the 1954 film, Prince and Kathie
  • Gavotte – Karl Franz, Princess, Captain Tarnitz, Ambassadors, Officers and Ladies of the Court
  • What Memories – Karl Franz


Act 4
  • Sing a Little Song – Students and Girls
  • To the Inn We're Marching (reprise) – Detlef, Von Asterberg and Students
  • Serenade (Overhead the Moon is Beaming) (reprise) – Detlef and Students
  • Come Boys, Let's All Be Gay Boys – Students, Detlef and Von Asterberg
  • Deep in My Heart Dear (reprise) – Karl Franz, Princess, Kathie, Rudolph, Gretchen and Company

Recordings

There are quite a few recordings of this score, though most date from the 1950s. No original Broadway cast recording was made, but the 1926 London cast did record some selections for EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

. These 78-RPM records have been transferred to CD on the Pearl Label. Earl Wrightson
Earl Wrightson
Earl Wrightson was an American singer and actor best known for musical theatre, concerts and television performances. His regular singing partner was the soprano Lois Hunt.-Early life and career:...

 starred in Al Goodman
Al Goodman
Al Goodman was a conductor, songwriter, stage composer, musical director, arranger, and pianist....

's recording for RCA Victor. This has not been released on CD. The last issue was on the budget label Camden in 1958.

Decca made an album in 1950 with Lauritz Melchior heading the cast in eight selections. This is on CD paired with The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...

. A more complete recording starring Robert Rounseville
Robert Rounseville
Robert Rounseville was an American tenor, who appeared in opera, operetta, and Broadway musicals.-Career:Rounseville was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He made his Broadway debut in a small role in the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms, then appeared in other musicals in...

 and Dorothy Kirsten
Dorothy Kirsten
Dorothy Kirsten was an American operatic soprano.-Biography:...

 was made by Columbia Records in 1952. It has been re-released on CD by DRG. Around the same time, Gordon MacRae
Gordon MacRae
Gordon MacRae was an American actor and singer, best known for his appearances in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, Oklahoma! and Carousel and films with Doris Day like Starlift.-Early life:Born Albert Gordon MacRae in East Orange, New Jersey, MacRae graduated from...

 recorded a 10-inch Lp for Capitol of the score. It was later repackaged on one side of a 12-inch album (The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...

is on the reverse) but that album has been out-of-print since the late 1960s.

RCA Victor recorded Mario Lanza
Mario Lanza
right|thumb|[[MGM]] still, circa 1949Mario Lanza was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian emigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 16....

 in highlights from the score, released when the singer's voice was used in the 1954 film version
The Student Prince (film)
The Student Prince is a 1954 CinemaScope color film musical featuring, as the credits read, "the singing voice of Mario Lanza". Lanza had become embroiled in a bitter dispute with MGM during production and the studio dismissed him. Under the terms of the settlement with Lanza, MGM retained the...

. Lanza later re-recorded the score in stereo for the same label, but it is the earlier mono recording that is on CD paired with selections from The Desert Song
The Desert Song
The Desert Song is an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. It was inspired by the 1925 uprising of the Riffs, a group of Moroccan fighters, against French colonial rule. It was also inspired by stories of Lawrence of...

.

Readers Digest include a selection in their album A Treasury of Great Operettas, first offered for sale in 1963. This stereo recording is available on CD. Also in 1963, as part of a series of stereo recordings of classic operettas, Capitol had MacRae and Kirsten record a full album of the score. Most of it can be heard on the EMI CD Music of Sigmund Romberg along with selections from The Desert Song and The New Moon
The New Moon
The New Moon is the name of an operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, Frank Mandel, and Laurence Schwab. The show was the third and last in a string of Broadway hits for Romberg written in the style of Viennese operetta...

. Around the same time, Columbia made a new stereo recording with Giorgio Tozzi
Giorgio Tozzi
Giorgio Tozzi was for many years a leading bass with the Metropolitan Opera, as well as playing lead roles in nearly every major opera house worldwide.-Career:Tozzi was born George John Tozzi in Chicago, Illinois...

, Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce....

 and Roberta Peters
Roberta Peters
Roberta Peters is an American coloratura soprano.One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York...

. This has not been issued on CD.

The most complete recording is a 2-CD set from That's Entertainment (TER/JAY) that includes much of the underscoring
Underscoring
In film production, underscoring is the playing of music quietly under dialogue or a visual scene. It is usually done to establish a mood or theme. In a play, sometimes incidental music is used for this purpose....

.

Cultural impact

  • "Drink! Drink! Drink!" was used as background music in Aquafina
    Aquafina
    Aquafina is a brand of bottled water products produced by PepsiCo, Inc., consisting of both unflavored and flavored water. The Aquafina brand name is also licensed for use on multiple skin care products, including lip balm and wrinkle cream...

     commercials in the 2000s and in Minute Maid
    Minute Maid
    Minute Maid is a product line of beverages, usually associated with lemonade or orange juice, but now extends to soft drinks of many kinds, including Hi-C...

    orange juice TV commercials of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK