La Belle Paree

La Belle Paree
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Music	Jerome Kern and Frank Tours
Lyrics	Edward Madden
Book	Edgar Smith
Setting	Contemporary Paris
Premiere	20 March 1911: Winter Garden Theatre, New York
Productions	96

La Belle Paree was a musical revue that launched the legitimate theatre career of Al Jolson. The book was by Edgar Smith, music by Jerome Kern and Frank Tours and lyrics by Edward Madden. Billee Taylor provided additional music and lyrics, and M. E. Rourke and Frederick Day provided additional lyrics. It premiered on Broadway in 1911.

La Belle Paree was staged between 20 March 1911 and 10 June 1911 at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, running for 104 performances. At first it was staged along with various companion pieces, including an overture, a one-act opera set in China, called Bow-Sing, an exotic dance sequence called Tortajada and Her Sixteen Moorish Dancing Girls in a Spanish Ballet, and an afterpiece. After opening night, the show was trimmed and reorganized, and the companion pieces were soon dropped. The show was produced by Lee Shubert and Jacob J. Shubert, staged by J. C. Huffman and William J. Wilson, and choreographed by Wilson. The production was briefly revived in September of the same year and then toured from September to November.

The Shubert Brothers engaged Al Jolson for his first Broadway appearance in La Belle Paree, which was the first show to play at their new Winter Garden Theatre. The piece concerned Bridgeeta McShane, a wealthy American widow visiting Paris for her health, who meets a number of suitors and eccentric characters, including Erastus Sparkler, played by Jolson. Jolson soon converted this supporting role into a star vehicle, and he would make a dozen further Broadway appearances (often at the Winter Garden) in his varied career.

The first performance was overlong and dragged in places, continuing until almost 1:00 am, and some of the audience left before the end. The reviews were mixed, and Jolson was disappointed with his own performance. Jolson was scheduled late in the program, as La Belle Paris followed most of the companion pieces. Jolson played a phony "colored aristocrat", the boyfriend of Bridgeeta's Black maid, played by Mayhew. He wore blackface, and together they sang Jerome Kern's coon song Paris is a Paradise for Coons, about the freedoms African-Americans supposedly enjoyed living in Paris rather than in "Yankee Land". They also sang another song together, Jolson gave a monologue and sang a third song during the evening. Many of the critics had already left before Jolson came on, to make their publication deadlines, but the critics that mentioned Jolson and Mayhew, including The New York Times, praised them.