The Serenade
| The Serenade | |
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Sheet music
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| Music | Victor Herbert |
| Lyrics | Harry B. Smith |
| Book |
Victor Herbert Harry B. Smith |
| Productions | 1897 Broadway 1930 Broadway revival |
The Serenade is an operetta with music and lyrics by Victor Herbert, and book by Harry B. Smith. Produced by a troupe called "The Bostonians", it premiered on Broadway on March 16, 1897 at the Knickerbocker Theatre and ran initially for 79 performances. It remained very popular into the new century, running almost continuously for the next seven years.
Herbert's second Broadway success (after The Wizard of the Nile), The Serenade is a romantic comedy about a song that sweeps the Spanish countryside. It has a complicated plot involving a girl, her near-sighted guardian who is trying to woo her, and a suitor who steals the girl away from the guardian.The Serenade helped spark the career of Alice Nielsen, a young soprano from Nashville. She went on to form her own theatre company and continued to star in other Herbert operettas.
It was revived on March 4, 1930 at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre, where it ran for 15 performances.
Romero (the President of the Royal Madrid Brigandage Association) and his group of bandits lie in wait to ambush travelers, including Alvarado and Dolores, the ward of the Duke of Santa Cruz. The Duke, who plans to wed his ward, has come to his castle to avoid the leading baritone of the Madrid Opera who has wooed and won the heart of his Dolores by singing her a serenade. The Duke is unaware that Alvarado is the singer. Yvonne, Colombo (her father, a former primo tenor) and Gomez (a tailor) appear, each looking for Alvarado for different reasons. Gomez asks Colombo to teach him the serenade so that he can win Dolores. But the singing attracts the Duke, who sends Colombo to the castle tower upon hearing his boasts of causing women to fall in love by his singing. Alvarado hears the Duke's plan to hide Dolores from the baritone in a convent and decides to hide himself in the monastery next door to be close to her. Yvonne overhears his plan and determines to spoil it. The bandits storm the castle, Alvarado arrives, and a battle ensues. Colombo, from his tower, dons a Mephistopheles costume and scares the bandits away by making them believe the castle is haunted.
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