"Naughty Marietta" declared love, of course, as the mystery of life. But this truth is revealed in a plot that rivals most operas for complexity.
Usually operetta is defined by simple plots and small casts. not this one, but it's certainly about as sweet and romantic as anything competing in the prewar years. Here's the "sweet mystery" duet in the classic film (1935) with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy - first of many of their film partnerships. As the blurb for the book and libretto, by Rida Johnson Young, puts it, "The libretto incorporates all things operetta; old world settings, disguised swashbuckling noblemen, romantic passions, comic subplots and narrative twists where love triumphs all." (The librettist, by the way, had never before written lyrics for an operetta!)
Naughty Marietta
Composer Victor Herbert started out as a cellist in Stuttgart and died (only 65) as an icon of American musical theatre. most commentators agree that his greatest achievement was this operetta. That's ignoring his dozens of other operettas and musical pieces.
Naughty Marietta premiered on Broadway in 1910, and was reborn in many forms - most famously in the 1935 film with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald which we're viewing. The story had a wild west drama to it, fused with the glamour of French New Orleans pre war and international intrigue - Marietta is a disguised Italian princess. But above all that, it had that mystery and love.
If you want the full synopsis, it's here - in complicated detail. Alternatively, here it is in a paragraph.
Along the way, learning of casquette girls and quadroons, as well as splendid balls and corruption in high places, you can reflect on the history of New Orleans and its relation to its then (sometimes) colonial homeland of France. (Actually New Orleans was Spanish at this stage in its history.)
And if you want the many stories of our two stars, you'll find fan blogs and debates about their relationship all over the internet. There's a story about the fascination across generations with their story here.
Their individual stories are very different. Jeanette MacDonald's bio is a tumble of the musicals, reviews, operettas and then films taking off in America at the time, and her fame grew as the stage world changed. On entering the world of film she starred in six in a year.
Nelson Eddy had a chequered career before song, (including work in an iron works factory and as a journalist), but he then trained - and was successful - as a baritone opera singer a favorite role being Amonasro, Aida's father. Of course, there was Gilbert and Sullivan - here's his modern major general. But more splendidly, his 1939 film version of the Volga Boatman's song. As our film shows, in 1935 he was not yet much of an actor. But more was to come.
But back to the operetta. Naughty Marietta was a huge success financially and a lasting success story. In 2003, the Library of Congress selected our film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." We don't know which! But it certainly was historically significant. This account of its creation and location in east coast American stagecraft offers the context:
The form that had taken Vienna by storm in the 19th century spawned a wave of American imitators eager to cash in on its increasing popularity in the United States. When Herbert and Young began working on Naughty Marietta, New York was still buzzing about the American premiere of Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow only three years before. The Viennese style of operetta featured lush, romantic music, dashing characters, popular dance forms (including the ultimate expression of romantic love, the waltz), and a palpable sense of nostalgia for a fairy-tale past. Fortunately, Herbert and Young were experts at their respective crafts.
The composer and librettist were not able to hold their operetta together, however, against the force of film culture.
The 1935 MGM version of Naughty Marietta put Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy together for the first time and their onscreen chemistry led to seven more pairings in films of operettas. Unfortunately for Herbert and Young – and for musical theatre purists – much of the original script and score were excised for the sake of film conventions. Only five of Herbert’s songs remained and two of Young’s three plots were axed to put all the focus on MacDonald and Eddy.
Lyn, 28/8/24
Comments