Victor Herbert: A Theatrical Life

Chapter 12. Operetta as Social Document

CHAPTER 12 operetta as social document (1905) mlle. modiste Type of work: Romantic Comic Opera Premiere: October 7, 1905 Theater: Taylor Opera House, Trenton, N.J. Knickerbocker, New York (December 25, 1905) Cast (Major Players): Henri de Bouvray, Compte de St. Mar William Pruette Capt. Etienne de Bouvray Walter Percival Hiram Bent Claude Gillingwater Gaston Leo Mars General Le Marquis de Villefranche George Schraeder Lieut. René La Motte Howard Chambers Mme. Cécile Josephine Bartlett Mrs. Hiram Bent Bertha Holly Fifi Fritzi Scheff Major Musical Numbers: ‘‘The Time, The Place and the Girl’’; ‘‘Kiss Me Again’’; ‘‘I Want What I Want When I Want It’’; ‘‘The Mascot of the Troop’’; ‘‘The Nightingale and the Star’’; ‘‘The English Language’’; ‘‘The Keokuk Culture Club.’’ Plot: A shop girl with dreams of something more—a career in the opera—triumphs over all the pressures of the world of the early twentieth century and in the process redefines the role of woman in society. With Mlle. Modiste Herbert and Blossom consciously set out to take American operetta to a new level. Beneath the fluff and furbelow, the work had a serious subtext: the position of women in contemporary society . Gustav Klemm, Herbert’s long-time musical amanuensis, testifies to the fact that Herbert had long been frustrated in his attempts to create integrated works. In a letter to biographer Isaac Goldberg, Klemm recalls 342 Herbert’s distaste for ‘‘song and dance’’ compositions and points out the role of publishers as a motive force behind the continuing trivialization of the American musical play. January 24th, 1931 . . . Reading your book [Goldberg’s biography of Gershwin] provokes so many thoughts one hardly knows where to stop. I was reminded at one spot of a long conversation I had with Victor Herbert. . . . He had started writing that string of lesser scores—‘‘Oui, Madame,’’ ‘‘The Girl in the Spotlight,’’ etc. What he especially loathed was the fact that the publishers wanted songs that could be lifted out of the action without any difficulty. All his life the old man had been having his songs grow out of the action and occasionally lines would refer to the surrounding situation. But the publishers didn’t want this. They just wanted songs—songs that could be lifted out and sung ‘‘as is’’ by Lizzie and her boy friend in the parlor on Sunday night. So Herbert had his instructions to write so many songs—the publishers and the producers would take care of the rest. This, of course, pulled down such productions to the level of the gutter that belched up the popular song and did away with any of the standards established by light opera, etc. Herbert fretted and fumed but, as he said, ‘‘After all, I and my family must eat, there must be money . . .’’ and then he gave one of those significant shrugs of his that expressed volumes. And so we had a drink.1 And Herbert, in an interview with the Philadelphia North American, speci fically underlines Klemm’s recollection: Musical comedies are at present [1914] hodge-podges of totally unrelated actions and songs. A comic opera with any pretense at artistic merit has the two forces so closely related and interwoven that the audience senses them as one and the same thing. Every situation requires some definite sort of music and the song must be logical and part of the natural action.2 What were Herbert and Blossom about when they developed Mlle. Modiste? Nothing less than presenting on the stage the problems human beings faced because of rigid societal stereotyping. Class distinctions and snobbery engulf royals and commoners alike in the treatment of characters from the nobility, as well as in portrayals of the exploitive roles of employers vis-à-vis their employees. What is more, a proto-feminist o p e r e t t a a s s o c i a l d o c u m e n t 343 agenda is central to the piece: an orphaned female forced to survive on subsistence wages but possessed of a feisty, individualistic spirit triumphs over every type of gender-based restriction to achieve freedom from the highly stereotyped role in which we first see her, to become a fully realized individual, both as artist and woman. At the final curtain she has grown from a poor shop girl to a mature figure who has won recognition...