Tweet Was Show Boat the first?

Was Show Boat the first musical play where the songs fit the plot instead of vice versa? Or was there another work that was less remembered but accomplished this before Show Boat? Like historians credit The Jazz Singer as the first 'sound film'.

No.

Bob

Oh, you want details. Musicals can be divided broadly into two sorts: revue musicals, in which they sing songs and dance dances and do other interesting stuff without any real plot to connect them; and book musicals, of which Show Boat is an example. Book musicals evolved from operetta. I happen to be very fond of the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, Offenbach and Lehar's stuff. Some may prefer Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Bob

Oh, you want details. Musicals can be divided broadly into two sorts: revue musicals, in which they sing songs and dance dances and do other interesting stuff without any real plot to connect them; and book musicals, of which Show Boat is an example. Book musicals evolved from operetta. I happen to be very fond of the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, Offenbach and Lehar's stuff. Some may prefer Mozart's The Magic Flute.

Bob

What about book musicals, a lot of operettas (now I'm not an expert) were basically set around a bunch of catchy songs, but with Show Boat, and a lot of musicals afterwards, had the book first and then the songs fitted in to the plot.

John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.

Bob

I happen to be very fond of the works of Gilbert & Sullivan.

Remember the wonderful G&S series on PBS about 25 yrs ago? Had them on VHS, but finding myself (as so often happened) in urgent need of a blank tape, recorded over them, I'm sorry to say. What a shame PBS never re-broadcasts such great stuff, choosing rather to purchase new but inferior material.

Not that he ranks with G&S or Lehar, but let's not forget Victor Herbert, whose Mlle. Modiste (in the Kiss Me Again film adaptation) is a favorite of mine.

I happen to be very fond of the works of Gilbert & Sullivan.

Remember the wonderful G&S series on PBS about 25 yrs ago? Had them on VHS, but finding myself (as so often happened) in urgent need of a blank tape, recorded over them, I'm sorry to say. What a shame PBS never re-broadcasts such great stuff, choosing rather to purchase new but inferior material.

Not that he ranks with G&S or Lehar, but let's not forget Victor Herbert, whose Mlle. Modiste (in the Kiss Me Again film adaptation) is a favorite of mine.

How good is Kiss Me Again, is it a faithful adaptation to the original?

How good is Kiss Me Again, is it a faithful adaptation to the original?

Can't say whether it's faithful, but can without hesitation say it's utterly delightful!

Best rendering of this beautiful song I've heard comes not from the film (much as I love lovely Bernice Claire!), but from a very much greater soprano, Amelita Galli-Curci, who also recorded other Herbert songs.

I happen to be very fond of the works of Gilbert & Sullivan.

Remember the wonderful G&S series on PBS about 25 yrs ago? Had them on VHS, but finding myself (as so often happened) in urgent need of a blank tape, recorded over them, I'm sorry to say. What a shame PBS never re-broadcasts such great stuff, choosing rather to purchase new but inferior material.

That series is available on DVD and you can often find it at highly discounted prices. Titles are also available separately from the complete set.

I happen to be very fond of the works of Gilbert & Sullivan.

Remember the wonderful G&S series on PBS about 25 yrs ago? Had them on VHS, but finding myself (as so often happened) in urgent need of a blank tape, recorded over them, I'm sorry to say. What a shame PBS never re-broadcasts such great stuff, choosing rather to purchase new but inferior material.

That series is available on DVD and you can often find it at highly discounted prices. Titles are also available separately from the complete set.

Here's a link to rundowns of the entire series- a few were fine, a couple missed the mark badly.

http://gasdisc.oakapplepress.com/narrvideo-walker.htm

What a surprise--thought these antiques would by now be lost in the mists of time. Patience & Iolanthe are the ones I remember liking best--but my recollection is extremely hazy. I like Doug, Jr., so well that I'm disappointed to read he displayed such a disagreeable attitude; that I recall not at all.

What a surprise--thought these antiques would by now be lost in the mists of time. Patience & Iolanthe are the ones I remember liking best--but my recollection is extremely hazy. I like Doug, Jr., so well that I'm disappointed to read he displayed such a disagreeable attitude; that I recall not at all.

The music is wonderful and the jokes are good. If you want egg in your beer, add it yourself. For me, fish scales will do.

Bob

KISS ME AGAIN, like many other screen adaption of Herbert, is a complete re-write of Mlle. Modiste, and not faithful to the original—probably for the better, in my opinion, since Herbert's book is by far the weakest link in his operettas.

That series is available on DVD and you can often find it at highly discounted prices. Titles are also available separately from the complete set.

Thanks for this tip. Found & bought the two I most wanted on Amazon for $5 ea, though a better bargain would have been the boxed set (2nd hand, that is). Was quite surprized by how caustic some of the review comments were!

That series is available on DVD and you can often find it at highly discounted prices. Titles are also available separately from the complete set.

Thanks for this tip. Found & bought the two I most wanted on Amazon for $5 ea, though a better bargain would have been the boxed set (2nd hand, that is). Was quite surprized by how caustic some of the review comments were!

Gilbert and Sullivan fans can have very definite ideas as to what is a proper performance. The D'Oyly Carte tradition is often regarded as sacred.

Gilbert and Sullivan fans can have very definite ideas as to what is a proper performance. The D'Oyly Carte tradition is often regarded as sacred.

Since the only G&S performances I can remember seeing were those in this PBS series, it's going to be impossible (fortunately!) for me to make such invidious comparisons. But so clever are the topical allusions, that even an otherwise lackluster G&S performance still has quite a lot going for it...as opposed to opera, wherein the (usually) pedestrian, insipid, lyrics leave nothing to enjoy but the musical performance .

KISS ME AGAIN, like many other screen adaption of Herbert, is a complete re-write of Mlle. Modiste, and not faithful to the original—probably for the better, in my opinion, since Herbert's book is by far the weakest link in his operettas.

Did it use a lot of the songs, or did they scrap most of the old ones for newer ones?

At least all songs in the film are Herbert's. While checking that, I observed (what I'd never noticed before) that it was filmed in Technicolor! And also that there had been a (lost) Lubitsch picture of the same name released in 1925. Plot of the latter isn't related to the operetta, but I wonder if its title was chosen to exploit the popularity of the song. Then in 1926, a Corinne Griffith picture actually called Mlle. Modiste appeared, suggesting something of the popularity of Herbert's original work; it too, I gather, is also lost.