Word: operetta
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...Hahn. A pampered favorite of Parisian society. Hahn was the man on whom Proust modeled the character of Vinteuil, and at his death in 1947, Hahn was remembered chiefly for his friendship with Proust. Last week in Munich's Gärtner Theater, Hahn's little-known operetta, Ciboulette, was drawing delighted crowds -and moving critics to take a new look at the man who was once regarded as a precociously gifted composer...
Suggested (though hardly inspired) by Victor Herbert's 1903 operetta, in which Mother Goose was overstuffed with theatrical goodies, Disney's nursery crhymes involve Tom Piper (Tommy Sands), Mary Contrary (Annette), Boy Blue, Bo Peep, Willie Winkie, Simple Simon, Jack and Jill, and Mother Goose herself, along with some ringers called Roderigo, Gonzorgo, Barnaby (Ray Bolger) and the Toymaker (Ed Wynn). Tom and Mary, the story goes, are about to be married, but that naughty old Barnaby, wielding a wicked snickersneer, does his worst to louse up the proceedings...
...this one has come to expect from the G & S Players; they possess the singular ability of fashioning entertainment out of dull nineteenth-century spoofs. But because of the ridiculously large number of playlets that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote, they can only occasionally hit upon an operetta that has any humor of its own. Iolanthe, happily, is such an operetta: W.S. Gilbert, for once, lampooned a group he actually knew by sight--instead of pirates and Japanese--and the result, coupled with Sir Arthur's magnificent mock-hymns, was a grandly devastating jibe at the Victorian Establishment. Peers sweep around...
...fairy ring is perhaps somewhat less successful (and the girls are not helped by an unfortunate etymological process which has added an unlooked for ribaldry to the operetta). Only Celia (Miss Elinor Martin) has the wild-eyed boredom proper to a group of immortals who cannot determine why they bother to trip their completely meaningless measures. And Miss Colleen Ryan, the Queen of the Fairies, despite her attractive contralto voice, lacks the heavy authority of a true monarch...
...Vienna filigreed in confectioner's icing, a wedding extravaganza such as only Broadway angels can afford. In and about these Oliver Smith settings cavort the Wiener Burger, garbed by Lucinda Ballard in resplendent turn-of-the-century costumes. Unfortunately, there is little more to this comic operetta than meets the eye, or greets the ear in a waltzy-schmalzy score. The best way to simulate an evening at The Gay Life is to do what is done onstage: open two bottles of flat champagne...