Sigmund Romberg [electronic resource] /
William A. Everett ; with a foreword by Geoffrey Block, general editor.
- Yale University Press, c2007.
- 1 online resource (xvii, 362 p.) : ill., music.
- Yale Broadway masters .
- Yale Broadway masters. .
Includes bibliographical references (p. [337]-341), discography (p. [302]-309), and index.
Sigmund Romberg : the man and his music -- Finding a voice : operetta, revue, and musical comedy -- Staging nostalgia : the road to maytime -- Continued success : The magic melody and Blossom time -- Young love in old Heidelberg : The student Prince -- Romance and exoticism in North Africa : The desert song -- Exploring new possibilities : from Cherry blossoms to The new moon -- Emulating the past : later stage works -- Romberg in Hollywood -- Building a legacy.
Hungarian-born composer Sigmund Romberg (1887-1951) arrived in America in 1909 and within eight years had achieved his first hit musical on Broadway. This early success was soon followed by others and in the 1920s his popularity in musical theatre was unsurpassed. In this book, William Everett offers the first detailed study of the gifted operetta composer, examining Romberg's key works and musical accomplishments and demonstrating his lasting importance in the history of American musicals. Romberg composed nearly sixty works for musical theatre as well as music for revues, musical comedies, and, later in life, for Hollywood films. Everett shows how Romberg was a defining figure of American operetta in the 1910s and 1920s ("Maytime", "Blossom Time", "The Student Prince"), traces the new model for operetta that he developed with Oscar Hammerstein 2nd in the late 1920s ("The Desert Song", "The New Moon"), and looks at his reworked style of the 1940s ("Up in Central Park"). This book offers an illuminating look at Romberg's Broadway career and legacy.