Rose-Marie

Rose-Marie
Sheet music cover
Music	Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart
Lyrics	Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II
Book	Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II
Productions	1924 Broadway 1925 West End 1928 Silent Film 1936 Film

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. When Jim falls under suspicion for murder, her brother Emile plans for Rose-Marie to marry Edward Hawley, a city man.

The work premiered on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre on September 2, 1924, running for 557 performances. It was the longest-running Broadway musical of the 1920s until it was surpassed by The Student Prince (1926). It was then produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London in 1925, enjoying another extraordinary run of 581 performances. It was filmed in 1928, in 1936 and again in 1954.

The best-known song from the musical is "Indian Love Call". It became Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy's "signature song". Several other numbers have also become standards, including the title song.

Producer Arthur Hammerstein, attempting to create popular new Broadway shows in the operetta tradition, sought exotic, unusual settings for his new productions. The Fortune Teller (1898) is set in Hungary, The Merry Widow (1907) takes place in France, and Naughty Marietta (1910) features New Orleans. He sent his nephew, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Otto Harbach to Quebec, Canada, to witness a rumored magnificent ice sculpture festival. The men reported that there was not, nor had there ever been, such a festival in Quebec or any part of Canada.