>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Pause ]
>> Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Nicholas Brown and it is my pleasure to welcome you on behalf
of the Music Division of the Library of Congress
to this evening's presentation and the wonderful Whittall Pavilion here
in the Jefferson Building.
Tonight, we are celebrating the musical worlds of Victor Herbert.
And the first component of our celebration is this wonderful talk
which features Alyce Mott and Loras John Schissel.
These are two of the key figures in resurrecting Herbert's legacy
in music in the world today.   And we are so thrilled to have them.
And of course, Loras is with us in the music division
so we get his presence everyday which is very fun.
Just to give you a brief introduction to both Alyce
and Loras, Alyce is a distinguished librettist and stage director.
She first came to the Library in 1994 to work on Herbert things
through Wayne Shirley who was a long time member
of the music division staff.   She has written new libretti
for various Herbert operettas including Babes in Toyland,
The Fortune Teller, Sweethearts, Naughty Marietta and Eileen,
as well as several others.
A lot of the productions that Alyce has created took place
at New York's Lincoln Center and certain stars
of the stage have participated in those such as Sally Anne Howes,
Estelle Parsons, Lynn Redgrave, and Patrice Munsel.
Alyce also co-created with Dino Anagnost,
the Victor Herbert Renaissance Project,
and she has also created the website vhsource.com
which makes online digital original Herbert performance materials
available at all times throughout the world.
And Loras is a wonderful musician and conductor and obviously,
staff member here at the Library.
He has been with the Cleveland Orchestra as a conductor since 1998,
performing regularly with them at Severance Hall and also
at the Blossom Music Center, their summer festival.
Loras is also the founder and music director
of Virginia's Grand Military Band and he is a composer and arranger
with a prolific output of over 400 published works
and over 200 compact disc recordings
and his film scores have been heard regularly on PBS and in films
at the FDR Presidential Library in New York.
Loras is also a regular commentator on NPR,
The Voice of America, and the BBC.
And just a little plug for his recent book was a book
about John Philip Sousa's life and legacy which was co-authored
with John Philip Sousa IV.
So we're so pleased to have these two brilliant experts
in music here this evening and we hope you enjoy their talk.
[Applause]
>> Can you hear us if we talk at about this volume?
In the back, too, you're okay?   >> Let's see.
Testing 1, 2, 3, is that wonderful?   >> Good.
>> Wonderful.
>> Well, just to get things started out right, just a little background
on Herbert here at the Library of Congress.
The music Victor Herbert, his manuscripts and his papers and such,
started coming here shortly after he died in 1924.
Just a month or two before he passed away,
the chief of the Music Division
at that time was Carl Engel who wrote to Herbert.
Another question, he's trying to find a phone number
and an address for someone.
He said, by the way Mr. Herbert, I was just looking on our shelves
and we have none of your manuscripts here.
You need to correct that problem.
And so Herbert wrote back and said I'd be glad.
Once I get the show done I'm working on.
I'll be glad to give you some of my manuscripts
for your collection down there.
So he died just a month or so after that.
And in all the years after that, his wife and then his daughter
and then the estate of Victor Herbert
over the years have been donating manuscripts to the Library
up until the present time, basically.
So there's no one curator of the Victor Herbert record.
There are series of people who have been sort of caretakers
of the Herbert legacy and probably the most famous
of our caretakers was the former chief of Music Division who some
of you may remember Ed Waters who is our chief here, our assistant chief
for many, many years and then our chief.
And in the 1940s, he looked on the shelf
and realized there had been not a good biography done
of Victor Herbert.
And it was unusual because Ed's big passion was music
of list 19th century romantic piano composer
and everyone sort of scratched their head.
What is it about Victor Herbert that Ed finds so fascinating?
And so Ed wrote the definitive biography and it's interesting,
that book came out in 1949, I think.   >> '56.
>> '56. He wrote in '49.   >> Yeah.
>> And then spent four years trying to get it from this big
to about this big for a regular publisher to publish it.
And except for a few things that Ed didn't have access to at that time,
it's still, if you think about it after all these years,
the definitive biography of Victor Herbert if you want
to know something about a fact.   >> Yeah, it's my bible.
>> Yeah.   >> And you can-- if you're looking--
if you have a question about Victor Herbert,
if you go to the Ed Water's book and look in the index, there it is.
You'll find it.
>> And that's because every bits-- all librarians look at a book,
the first thing they check is the index
and the say, "Oh, this is good.   This will be a good book, so".
That's Ed.
Just a little-- 'cause Alyce has been so instrumental
in keeping Herbert in front of the public eye.
Most of us know him through a few shows, maybe Babes in Toyland
that you remember with Laurel and Hardy.
Some of these sort of film versions of his shows
that are not terribly close to the original [laughter] and--
like all things how I do it.   [Inaudible Remark] That's right.
Yup? [Inaudible Remark] Yeah.
They were kind of cobbled together but they were great tunes.
>> Yeah.
>> And so, so most of us know it but you know,
Victor Herbert was an Irishman through and through.
I think if you cut him, he'd bleed green.
[laughter] He's born in Dublin.
He's grandfather was Samuel Lover who was a great--
we don't know that name much but in Ireland, he's considered one
of the great poets and painters and authors and folklorists
and that he grew up in that family.
Like all good musicians, he was sent to get a proper training in Germany
in composition and by the time he left Germany to come
to the United States, he was really one of the great cellists traveling
with different orchestras, the orchestra of Johann Strauss,
his brother Edward, played for various kings
in their court orchestras and then started composing,
married a lovely girl named Therese Forester who was an opera singer
and came over because she got a job with the Metropolitan Opera
and he got his first job playing first cello
on the Met Orchestra in the pit there.
And it was at that time that-- a few forays into being a bandmaster,
into being a conductor, a cellist, a composer of serious music
but then he starts writing his musicals.
And that's where I'm going to turn it over to Alyce
because she's forgotten more about these shows
than those people know about them, so.
So tell us about Herbert in his time as a com-- a Broadway composer.
>> Well, he-- I like to say--
I always like to ask people why should we care about Herbert?
Herbert is a game changer.
There are, you know, the American population has the biggest
entertainment world in the world.   What we do affects the whole world.
And we-- that whole world was built on the shoulders of about six
or seven people, one of them being Victor Herbert.
And Victor Herbert probably more than anyone else determined
where the modern world of entertainment was going.
>> What was the date of his fist show?
>> Pardon?   >> What was the date?
>> 1894, Prince Ananias was the first show.
The interesting thing about Herbert and his operetta writing was
that he sprung forth fully conceived with a successful show.
That's produced by the Bostonians.
It was a hit and from there, he went on.
I'm up to examining number 43 this month.
It's 1920, it's a show called "The Girl in the Spotlight"
which you probably never heard of.   But that's number 43.
It's taken me-- I started walking through them in July of 2009
and that's taken me-- that's 43 months ago.
I'll be finished some time next year.
But let's get back to why you should know about Victor Herbert.
He was first and foremost a performer.
Loras talked about him being a cellist.
He was also an incredible pianist.   He accompanied Emma Juchs.
Emma Juchs is 18-- late 1880s, early 1890s singing star
who did salon performances.
She toured the country and he was her music director and he played.
And there have been-- were several occasions
where he was still way late into his life long
after he stopped really being a performer
where he was still being asked to accompany singers.
So he's a fine pianist and incredible cellist.
He was our Pablo Casals.
There's a guy in Boston that I never remember his name conveniently,
but he probably would have challenged that a little bit
but Herbert was the premier cellist.
He and who was it we were just taking about, The Brahms.
>> Oh, The Brahms Double Concerto was given its American premiere here
in the United States with Victor Herbert on cello and Max Fiedler,
no relation to Arthur and the Boston Pops,
they did the American premiere of that piece here.
>> And they insisted on doing it from memory and they insisted
on growing their beards until they had it mastered, mastered.
So, I'm sure they were very hairy
when they did the actual performance.
But he was so-- he's first and foremost a performer.
And then he was a composer.   He was composer before he got here.
There's a wonderful piece called Royal Sec, which was written
in 1887-88 and is a precursor of the champagne galop in "Hello, Dolly!"
You're all familiar with that.
Well, this is the same kind of thing with the percussionist has
to have popping champagne corks
and tinkling glass through the whole thing.
It's a wonderful piece that has been restored
and orchestras are asking for the lot.
He composed band music.   He composed orchestral music.
He composed German leader, at least 19 examples of German leader
for Emma Juchs and her group.
Forty, I'm thinking it's probably somewhere around 45 to 46 operettas,
all of which were produced on Broadway,
one grand opera, two one act operas.
Film scores, he was the first composer, American composer,
to write a complete film score from beginning
to end with original music.
It's called "The Fall of the Nation," it was 1911,
and he showed the rest of the composers that, wow, golly gee,
you could make a living composing for film.
Let's see, what else in the way of composing song, the man had a touch
for melody that you will hear tonight
that was absolutely incredible and keep in mind as you listen tonight
that Irving Berlin grew up listening to him
as did Richard Rodgers, as did Jerome Kern.
They all grew up listening to Herbert because Herbert was turning
out melodies starting in 1894.   Vocal melodies.
He was the first one to say, "You know,
I bet you we can sell these songs."
And he started it from Prince Ananias in 1894 and he sold seven
to eight sheet music songs per show, every show.
>> Is that from before Tin Pan Alley in the--
>> Yes.   >> Oh, yeah.
>> Before Tin Pan Alley really got started
and he also made Tams-Witmark.
Tams-Witmark's-- Isidore Witmark said, "Oh, golly gee,
you're a perfect person for me to hook up with."
And Isidore became his primary publisher through the years but,
and he made Isidore Witmark a ton of money.
He is a conductor and he conducted absolutely--
oh, I know, one thing before we get to conducting,
he was in one of the more famous New York--
He helped start one of the more famous New York string quartets.
So he was a chamber music player, okay, as a performer.
Now, from a conducting standpoint, he had conducted.
He had an orchestra when he was in Europe.
He came over here and he immediately started playing
for Theodore Thomas and Walter Damrosch.
>> And then the Met.
>> And then the Met and soon he was assistant conducting
and his first big job caused him some problems
because he became the band director of Gilmore's Band
and oh my God, a band director.
Who did he think he was and especially when not long,
within two years, three years after becoming a band director,
he was named the conductor of Pittsburgh Orchestra
and that really caused problems.   Oh my goodness.
How can they hire a band director to direct the orchestra?
So, he was an orchestra director, he's a band director.
He conducted his-- almost every opening night of his operettas
and even more spectacularly, he orchestrated everything he wrote.
Now, for those of you who might not understand what that means,
that means that he would stand-- you're going to see a lovely desk
that Loras will tell you all about but when he talks about that desk,
Herbert would sit there at the desk with orchestra scores
which are, what, 12 lines.   >> No, at least.
Maybe 17 or 18.
>> 12, 15, 17 lines and he would write the orchestra score
as he went.
He composed 40 orchestras immediately.
He didn't sit down at the piano and play a tune
and then he orchestrated as he composed and--
>> And over this desk now was the piano.
>> For the most part.   The piano was always there.
>> Yeah.
>> But the desk, but he was doing it at his desk.
This guy is the predecessor.   He's the only American composer
who orchestrated his own work, I believe.
I think, Kurt Weill orchestrated his work
but for sure Leonard Bernstein did not even though he said he did.
>> And Sondheim certainly doesn't.   >> And Sondheim doesn't, no.
>> And just to add to that, part of that is usually, the composer is
so busy working on the show that way
and orchestrating is a time consuming project and Herbert was
so facile at it that he could do it.
Plus he was so fussy about it, he didn't want other people doing it
and composers, we're talking about the young composers,
if you'd ask him, the Kerns of Berlin, the Gershwins, all that,
they admired Herbert because of this beautiful music that he wrote
but also his scoring that he could make an orchestra
in the pit just sound glorious that way and that was one of his thing.
>> You have a question.   >> Yeah, you said 17 lines.
Are those different lines for different instruments.
>> Different instruments.
So you'd-- you know, you have flutes, and oboes,
and clarinets down the way.   >> Yeah.
>> Are you saying Bernstein didn't orchestrate his symphonies?
>> I'm not sure about his symphonies and that's concert music, okay?
We're talking about theater music.   >> West Side Story.
>> West Side Story was not.   >> It's an orchestra.
>> No. They're not.
>> No. And most, most composers don't.
Richard Rodgers didn't.
It's just something you don't have time for when you're writing a show.
>> They all relied on Robert Russell Bennett who kind of learned
from Herbert and Frank Sadler.
Frank Sadler did a lot of early musical comedy orchestrations
but Herbert did his own and because of that, when you listened
to a Herbert score played with an orchestra,
you are constantly surprised.
You are constantly delighted by the sounds
and I've even had musicians say, "Maestro, that can't be right.
Let's play it again.   Oh, it is right.
It's just different."
He just was an absolute genius at scoring.
To a certain extent he was almost a Mozart.
>> Oh, certainly his memory was-- [Inaudible Remark]
>> Yes, and as he wrote.
>> And he certainly produced the same way.
Just doing that on his head.   >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, he's conducting.
He's never failing at anything that he's doing but then he gets
into the championing the composer in America.
Puccini came over here for "Girl
of the Golden West" and said, "Oh, my God.
You don't have a copyright law that deals
with recordings, things like that?"
And the next thing we know, the agent that was dealing
with Puccini is talking to Nathan Burkan who says, "Well,
you got to get Victor on it."
Okay. You got to get Victor, and Victor and John Philip.
>> And Irving Berlin.
>> And eventually Kern and a whole bunch
of other people spent two solid years lobbying down here
for mechanical rights for the composer.
Mechanical rights are your recording rights and there's a wonderful story
about him walking into a restaurant.
It wasn't the famous chandelle situation but he walked
into a restaurant and say, they were throwing a party for Herbert
and they thought they would surprise him and the orchestra--
the restaurant owner brought out a big victrola
and played a famous Herbert song and Herbert walked over and picked it up
and threw it on the floor because he had no [inaudible]
who is making money on recording his material that he hadn't authorized.
So, Herbert did that and then after that, he went the next step
and he insisted on ASCAP being formed.
ASCAP is the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.
The night that they started the show, it was a major thunderstorm.
They invited 50 guys to come to Luchow's on 14th Street, New York
and it was horrible rainy night and nobody showed up except seven guys.
And then they all said well, we got to put it off
but let's have dinner and go home.
And Herbert said, nope, we came here to do it, we're going to do it
and he and these six other guys formed ASCAP and then
about six months later, it was, I think it was 1914,
they had another meeting that a hundred people showed up at
and ASCAP was officially started,
and ASCAP still runs very well today, thank you,
and protects the mechanical rights of the composer.
I think that's a reason to care about Victor Herbert.
And I think if you really delve
down in your minds I don't think you can come
up with another American figure in music or entertainment who did
as much for the changing of the game as Victor Herbert did.
I don't think there's anybody else.
>> This is what-- the changing of the game is what I've been thinking
of having grown up beyond--
with Herbert and Kern and loving those operettas.
And then like the-- always hearing that the Oklahoma,
sometimes Show Boat was a big change.
>> Yeah.
>> Because they had the songs that matched the story
and that's not the way I remembered it.
>> Well, you know, the interesting thing is that as I look
at game changers and I'm beginning to explore this whole thing
as part of my own research.
You know, Oscar Hammerstein II wrote Show Boat
and Oscar Hammerstein II is a game changer and the reason he is,
is because he's the first of the fine American librettists.
Before Oscar Hammerstein II we had none.
The ones that we had were Henry Blossom who worked with Herbert.
We had Harry B. Smith writing
over 300 operettas but he wasn't very good.
He was a great lyric writer.
You sing the lyrics that Harry B. Smith wrote a lot.
But was he a good librettist?
No. The first really good librettists were two Brits,
P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton who came over and did the
"Princess Theater" shows with Jerome Kern, but they were Brits.
Oscar Hammerstein II was the first American
and that's why everybody fixates on Show Boat 1927.
[Inaudible Remark]
>> Harry B. Smith, Henry Blossom, two women.
Rida Johnson Young is responsible
for the single most famous Herbert ever written
which is Naughty Marietta.
And Naughty Marietta is a wonderful tale for
and I could spend hours talking about Naughty Marietta
because it came out of a disaster.
The disaster that we'll talk about in a few minutes
to make sure I don't run over on time because it came
out of the Ashes of Natoma and we're going to talk
about Natoma in a few minutes.
But that's where Naughty Marietta came from.
Natoma died the first time in March of 1910.
Naughty Marietta opened in November of 1910.
It did not exist in March, April and May.
Rida Johnson Young got recommended by Isidore Witmark.
She wrote that show entirely.
Herbert wrote that show entirely from June to August or September,
Naughty Marietta, probably the most classic American operetta
in existence.
>> And a good libretto, I think it's--
>> And a very good libretto.   >> I like it.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> What's the difference between a composer and an arranger?
>> Good question.
I spent, I write a newsletter and that question bugs me a lot
so I explored that whole thing this year.
A composer writes everything about the piece of music.
Okay, he writes the melody and he writes how it's played.
An arranger goes to a guy who can only write the melody
and writes everything else for him.   So--
>> Composer writes the harmony.   >> Pardon?
>> Many composers write the harmony.
>> That's what I said though, but that's-- no, that's what I said,
the composer controls the way it sounds.
>> All right.
>> Okay. Now, I like to say that a lot
of people including Irving Berlin was a tunesmith more
than he was a composer because he couldn't take the melody any further
than his piano and his one or two fingers could do.
All right.
An arranger comes in and writes the piano version.
An orchestrator comes in and writes orchestra version and fills
out what every, what it sounds like.
And it always bugged me because a composer controls what he's,
what's in his head.
And if you have to have an orchestrator, yes, you can talk
and you can give suggestions
but you can't totally control what's in your head.
You have to rely on that other guy.
And Robert Russell Bennett was absolute genius
at serving Richard Rodgers and Jerome Kern and everybody,
Lerner and Loewe, everybody.   He made them sound like they were.
>> And just a quick Berlin story in this thing.
You know, we all know that Irving Berlin had a very minimal education
in music and he played the black keys on the piano.
So you had a piano that he called the Buick that would adjust
and he could always play in the black keys
but it would move the tone center
of the piece wherever you needed it to go.
And Robert Russell Bennett talks about sitting
with him 'cause Robert Russell Bennett would act
as his secretary 'cause Irving did not know how to note--
takedown what he had written.
He didn't know how to write down the music
so Robert Russell Bennett would act as a secretary
and write down what he played.
And they would work for hours and Irving would try this and try this
and Bennett had studied in France with Nadia Boulanger and he'd say,
"Well, Irving, maybe you need this chord here
and play a diminished seventh chord or something like that."
And Irving said "No, that's not what I want, don't bother me,"
and he would do that and Robert Russell Bennett said
that after hours of doing this, Berlin found the right chord
that made the song not a good song but a great song.
He said, I never would have thought to have found
that chord for that thing.
And Berlin was an enormous admirer of Herbert and just worshipped him.
And he came to Herbert at one point, he said,
would you give me music lessons and Herbert said, absolutely not.
He said you have something that can't be taught
and the worst thing I could do is wreck this wonderful gift
that you have.
You just go on writing the way you do 'cause no one else can write
Irving Berlin songs, so.
>> You know, they wrote a show together.
In 1916, Ziegfeld and his huge rival, Charles B. Dillingham,
came together and they decided they would
out Ziegfeld Follies themselves.
And they wrote and they hired Irving Berlin and Victor Herbert.
Henry Blossom and Berlin wrote his own lyrics
and they wrote a show called "The Century Girl."
You're going to hear some music from The Century Girl tonight.
And it was not about centuries, it was about the Century Theater
which was at the time one of the largest theaters in New York City
and it was way up north at 62nd and Centra Park West.
If you've been in New York and you know
where the Century Apartments are then you know
where the Century Theater was.
And they wrote together and one of my one--
my favorite Irving Berlin stories is that Herbert came
in to play the music that he'd written for some
of the big production numbers.
And Irving Berlin said you know, I wasn't really all that impressed.
He said it was okay, but it's certainly wasn't anything big
and wonderful and he said, then when the orchestra came
and Herbert lifted his arms and that orchestra played, he said, my God,
it was like men from heaven, just amazing,
and that's where that relationship started was on The Century Girl,
really, really nice thing.
You suppose we should take some time and talk about revivals
and restoration where we are?   >> Absolutely.
To start, one quick thing I want
to interject 'cause I notice a question I'll get when it's all over
and people didn't have, it's a question I get all the time.
What is an operetta, you know, it's not that difficult.
It's a musical, it's a precursor to what we think of as our musical now.
But it's a play that has songs in between a spoken dialogue.
Most of the operettas we're talking about come out of the tradition
of the European operettas which might be Johann Strauss.
It also comes out of Jacques Offenbach and some of those,
and it just kind of transfers.
And that was sort of the pre-- Oh, Gilbert and Sullivan is another one.
So you'd have songs but then you'd have talking in between, whereas,
an opera generally is a song from beginning to end sort of thing.
Even the spots where people might be in a play talking.
Ned Rorem says that if he was writing an operetta, he would say,
pardon me ma'am while I use the lavatory.
And if he was writing an opera, they would say,
I'm going to the restroom.
So, that's sort of how you make the differentiation there.
>> In Herbert's case, he always had to have
at least a treatment or the book.   >> Yeah.
>> Herbert did.
You know, here's an interesting thing
about Herbert and his operettas.   He never initiated a single project.
Never, except Madeleine, which was an opera.
>> Yeah.   >> He never initiated it.
The producer would come to Victor and say,
Victor-- Vic, I need a show.   Well, who's going to write the book?
And 9 times out of 10, it was Harry B. Smith.
And then he discovered Henry Blossom with Mademoiselle Modiste 1905,
1906, somewhere right there, 1905.
>> And don't forget Glen MacDonough who did the big show,
Babes in Toyland, who's a very important guy.
>> Yes. And who was one of the founders of ASCAP.
>> Of ASCAP.
>> But Herbert didn't initiate, and he did not go
out and hire librettists.
He did not go out and hire stage managers.
He did not go out and hire set people.
He simply wrote music.   [ Inaudible Question ]
No, no. They would write their libretto and he would come.
Now, the sad thing is that he never found his Gilbert.
But the reason he never found his Gilbert was
because there wasn't a Gilbert in America.
There really wasn't.   Henry Blossom was the closest.
And quite honestly, Rida Johnson Young wrote the best libretto going.
There's nothing wrong with Naughty Marietta.
That one is a very strong story and it's got angst and conflict
in it and great stuff in it.
The men could never figure out how to do that.
They were always simply telling exotic stories.
But to go one step further is, what's the difference
between operetta and musical comedy?
There's one and only one real difference.
You have to be able to sing to sing an operetta.
You have to have a voice.
Musical comedy, you don't have to have a voice.
Rex Harrison proved you can talk it.   >> Talk his way through.
>> Okay? And Herbert did not always write operetta.
Sweethearts is just between.
But there are not great voices necessarily in Sweethearts.
Red Mill is a musical comedy.
There's no way that Red Mill is an operetta.
[Inaudible Remark] You know why?
Because the producer came, and who is the producer?
If the producer was a musical comedy guy,
he would bring musical comedy people.
And in some cases, he wants musical comedy.
There's a wonderful Cyrano de Bergerac that was written in 1899,
one year after the play opened in Paris.
It was commissioned, produced
and starred Francis Wilson, who is a vaudevillian.
So he decided that Cyrano was a bumpkin.
And everybody lived.   [laughter] Herbert wrote it.
He wrote some gorgeous music.
It's probably one of the most gorgeous scores you've never heard.
It's gorgeous music, but it definitely was a huge failure.
I think it lasted 28 performances and then was gone.
And fortunately, that book got lost a long, long time ago.
So that when we restored it, we took the score which was doable
and went back to the rough stand story
and told the story the way it's supposed to be,
and the 11 o'clock song, when everybody was still alive,
we used it as the balcony scene because there was no balcony scene.
How can you do a Cyrano with no balcony scene?
One of my friends, Susan back there, said, how can you do the Romeo
and Juliet without a balcony scene?
[laughs] But let's talk about how we brought about--
we're in the midst of a wonderful revival of Victor Herbert.
And I like to hope that I've had a fairly strong hand in it.
I came to Victor Herbert through Babes in Toyland.
I got asked by Dino Anagnost in the Little Orchestra Society
to write a new Babes in Toyland,
and I didn't know Victor Herbert from a hole in the walk.
Honest to God.   >> To write a new one?
>> Write, yeah, a new stor-- a new libretto.
And the first time I went to the studio rehearsal
and heard the orchestra play,
and I thought it's the most beautiful music I've ever heard
in my entire life.   And I came down and I told Wayne.
And Wayne said to me, he said okay, you've done Babes in Toyland.
Everybody does Babes in Toyland.
You want to do something for Herbert?
And he took me.
This is when the Herbert collection was still on the same--
it was still on the first floor, it hadn't gone down to the vault yet.
And he took me into this room that was about half of this size.
All the way around the outside edges and in the center up to the ceiling,
boxes and boxes and boxes.
And he said, you want to do something for Victor Herbert?
This is Victor Herbert, and nobody cares and nobody knows.
And I went to the foundation,
and the Victor Herbert Foundation didn't care.
All right.
It was in the hands of a 94, at that time,
year old guy who said nobody cares about Victor Herbert.
He was giving all his money to seeing eye dogs and boy scouts
and all of these, and we convinced him.
I con-- first of all, I had to convince my maestro
that there was something here.   And we could have a lot of fun.
He'd been doing Vivaldi for years.
They've done Vivaldi up to here, as far as I was concerned.
And I said why don't you become a Victor Herbert orchestra?
And he decided to do Fortune Teller, which was in awful shape.
I cannot even begin to tell you the shape of that show orchestra-wise.
We did Fortune Teller and the audiences loved it.
Alice Tully Hall, Sally Ann Howes, we had six singers, a full course,
a full professional orchestra, and it was dynamite.
The next year, we decided to do Cyrano
which made the Fortune Teller parts look beautiful.
And the Fortune Teller parts come from Tams-Witmark,
they were a hundred years old.
They had been rented I don't know how many times.
And they were in awful shape, been cut, just awful shape.
And the Cyrano parts were more than a hundred years old
and it'd never been played, but were still an awful shape.
[Inaudible Question] Yes.   Yes. Never ever-- well, no.
Not in the case of Fortune Teller.
Fortune Teller is the only famous one
in which there's hardly a score in existence.
So that-- those parts have been recreated and they are coming
from the Tams-Witmark touring parts.   That's all we had.
But in case of Cyrano, we have the original scores and actually,
as we speak, they're being finalized in the computerized version.
The next show we did was Mademoiselle Modiste,
and I met a guy named Bruce Herman who said I want to computerize it.
And I will do the work.
And I said I will help you get all the scores
if you'll let us use the parts.
So when we did Mademoiselle Modiste, which I think was 2001,
we had computerized parts and my orchestra was not ready to kill me.
When we did Cyrano, the orchestra said, if you put one more
of those things on our stance, we're going to revolt.
Why on earth do you want to do this awful stuff?
Well, they were having such a hard time reading the parts
that they were not caring about what they were putting out music wise.
When we did Mademoiselle Modiste, everything changed.
So we started, I had convinced my maestro that we had something going.
And by the time, he passed away a year ago, a year and a half,
and we have now done-- we did eight shows.
So we have those eight shows.   After he-- after I left working--
I worked for his orchestra for a while, and after I left there,
I had tried to get Rodgers and Hammerstein to publish my stuff.
And Rodgers and Hammerstein can never figure out how to make money.
So they kept saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And I thought this revival isn't going to happen
until people can play the music and people have acces to the music.
So after I left working for the orchestra,
I had this little thing go off in my head and I thought digital.
Everything needs to be PDF'd and available.
And I started a business, VHSource, and one of my happiest moments was
within four months of being open, Paris called at 6:30 one--
no, Paris emailed me at 6:30 one morning and said,
we are in dire need of The Prima Donna song.
Do you have The Prima Donna song, which is actually are just calling
for me, which is you are also going to hear tonight.
And I said, sure, I have it.
And I said, all you have to do is yadda dada-dada-dada-dada
and 30 minutes later, they had their music in Paris, ready to print
out the original Herbert version.   [applause] Absolutely incredible.
[Inaudible Remark]
No, I sell them because it's public domain material.
And 45 dollars and you can have it and you'll keep it,
or you can throw it away if you want to.
Now, I'm in the process of beginning to rent my librettos
which are not public domain, they're copyrighted but they all work
and they've been done by people like Lynn Redgrave.
So you know it, Lynn Redgrave is not going to do a piece
of libretto that doesn't work.   And neither is Estelle Parsons.
And I had great, great success with those people.
So that's what we're doing and I now have about six guys.
Interestingly enough, they're guys,
ladies haven't started doing this yet, but who computerized stuff.
And as we speak right now, the following shows, let's see,
Fortune Teller has been done by a guy named Adam Aceto
out in California, and has been played by Ohio Light Opera,
as well as a place in Michigan.   Sweethearts has been done.
Red Mill has been done.   Naughty Marietta has been done.
Eileen has been done.
The Magic Knight, which is a one-act spoof of Lohengrin has been done.
[laughter] What else has been done?
I don't know if I've missed anything.
Babes in Toyland, Babes in Toyland is a whole different question.
Babes in Toyland has been completely done and not allowed to be shared,
so we are doing it again.   [Inaudible Remark] No.
The guy who originally commissioned it will not talk to anybody,
will not share, so we are doing Babes in Toyland again.
As we speak right now, the following shows are underway.
Madeleine is almost done.   That's a one-act opera.
The Serenade is underway.
The Serenade is the first masterpiece
in 1896, 97 maybe-- '97 I think.
Very-- There's a Harry B. Smith that works.
>> Gather questions too.   >> Oh, gather questions too, okay.
So The Serenade, Cyrano de Bergerac is on the way
to being done and Natoma.
Natoma is two-thirds of the way done.
It's his grand opera, and that is--
I will take four minutes to talk about Natoma.
Natoma was not very well received when it happened.
It was not understood.   It starred Mary Garden.
It was an American operetta set in California
with an American-Indian-- a Native Indian Spanish.
[Inaudible Remark] It is an opera.   >> Full opera.
>> It's a full grand opera.   It lasts good three hours.
It's a pre-act opera.   It has some glorious music in it.
Its libretto got absolutely creamed that the poor guy
who wrote it didn't write again for a long time.
He eventually did write again, but it got negative reviews.
We-- Glen Clugston and I came down to the Library of Congress where all
of it resides, and spent three days putting it in order.
And then, in 2011, a guy who put on a concert celebrating 150 years
of Willow Grove Amusement Park fell in love with Herbert,
and he computerized the choral portion of the act three,
and he fell in love with it.
And I somehow convinced him to do the whole thing.
Now, he's primarily doing it for free.
Most of my people work for free.   They're doing it out of love.
But I've got a team now of Peter Hilliard who lives
in the Willow Grove area.   He's doing the computerization.
Glen Clugston who is a retired music director
and a touring music director in New York is doing all the proofing.
Dan Pantano from Philadelphia area is marketing
and looking for an orchestra.
The goal is in 2014 to do the whole thing as written in a weekend.
On a Friday, we will rehearse the orchestra.
The orchestra can also have the parts as long ahead as they want.
On Saturday, we'll add the voices.
And on Sunday, we'll have people to sit and listen,
and tell us what they like and what they don't like,
where they get lost.
In other words, let's let this wonderful,
the most important opera written before Porgy and Bess,
has not been heard in a hundred years.
And that's what we're trying to do.   >> Where are you doing it?
Where in New York?
>> No. We're hoping to do it in the Philly area because that's
where it opened, and that's a whole big another story.
But that's where it opened.
And either New York or-- Philadelphia or Chicago, or Chicago.
>> You mentioned all these different Herbert operettas.
How many of them were done on the movies
with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald?
I don't know, a lot.   [Inaudible Remarks]
>> I'm going to interject here because that was Herbert--
that was-- [Inaudible Remark] There were four or five
of those shows that did that.   That was Herbert's daughter.
Ella Herbert was Victor Herbert's daughter.
And when he died, he didn't really leave much money.
He had sort of an Irish will.   They read it out and said, sorry,
there's nothing left, I drank all the money.
[laughter] And she took a very small inheritance from her father.
And her main goal was to keep her father's music in the public eye.
And she was not a purist because she said I don't need to be a purist.
The point is to keep this music in front of the public.
Just like we see the Gershwin family now is saying, look,
we've been keeping Porgy and Bess the pure opera all these years.
And they said, pure is great, but no one is listening
to it, no one is performing it.
So she said, here is this wonderful vehicle
of this beautiful Jeanette MacDonald and this handsome Nelson Eddy
to keep this music alive.   And they gave it to Hollywood.
And don't forget that the first MGM colored musical was not the Wizard
of Oz.
The year before, their first colored musical was Sweethearts.
A full year before MGM.
And I still meet a lot of people that, for them,
that's their Victor Herbert and you have to respect that.
>> But they sure had changed the stories.
>> Oh, my goodness.   >> Marietta is nothing.
>> Oh yeah.
>> And, not to mention the fact that Nelson Eddy wasn't a tenor.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, and the other thing is so you think
about this is how many here have attended and seen all
of the Gershwin musicals?   [Inaudible Remark] That's right.
Most people don't even know what the Gershwin musicals were
because we have this wonderful music that came from it.
And for some people, they don't need the show.
[Inaudible Remark] That's right.
[Inaudible Remark] It's part of the vernacular but the music is so good
that it doesn't need the show.
You don't need to know where 'S Wonderful came
from to enjoy 'S Wonderful.   You don't need to know the Babes--
the original Babes in Toyland to almost get teary
when you hear Toyland, when you're walking through the mall.
I mean we're almost at Christmas time.
Now is the great big Herbert revival with them right
to the toys in Toyland, so.   >> And none of the books.
We don't ever pretend that Herbert was out there with good librettists.
He wasn't, which is why I do what I do.
>> Yeah. [Inaudible Remark]   >> The book is the libretto.
>> Yeah.
>> What I don't do is I do my best not to do redo lyrics.
We-- and we don't change a note of Herbert's music.
We may shorten it down.
>> And we probably should ask some questions quick because I have
to go open up my Irish whiskey on stage
so let it breathe a little bit before the concert,
so if you have any questions, we've--
>> Oh yeah.   >> Yes? [Inaudible Remark]
>> Who's the other woman?   Didn't you say there were two?
>> Oh yeah.   Fred de Gresac.
[Inaudible Remark] Fred--
>> Maybe she never worked with her but--
>> Is actually Fred Rica [phonetic].
She was from Paris and she was married to a very famous,
and I can't think of his name.   His name always slips away from me,
but a very famous baritone with the French opera.
And that's how she got here.   >> Which one did she do?
>> Which ones did she do, she did Orange Blossoms.
>> Oh yeah.   >> And she did portions of Red Mill.
>> Oh.
>> She, in fact, where she first started working with Herbert,
if you know Red Mill, there's a wonderful scene two-thirds
of the way through the first act where there's an accident
between a Frenchwoman and an English barrister.
And the Frenchwoman speaks all in French the entire scene,
and that's where Fred de Gresac started working with Herbert.
So--
>> You kept using the term book and then libretto or something.
What do those mean?
>> A book is the same thing as a libretto.
The real terms are libretto and lyrics.
In other words, the words that go with the songs
and then the words that are spoken.
So, a libretto or book are the words that are spoken.
>> And you might, and to clarify that a little more.
You might-- for Oklahoma's Green Grows My--
>> Green Grow the Lilacs.   >> Green Grow the Lilacs.
That was a book.
And they saw this book and they said boy,
that make a good play or something.
From that book, a dramatic person took that and condensed it down,
just like a screenwriter would condense it down.
You couldn't put a whole book on stage
or something 'cause it'd be 90 hours long.
So, the libretto is created from that book and then generally,
another person, but it can't be the other,
it's same person would write the lyrics for the songs and that's sort
of the poet that comes up with the, you know,
Old Man River, the lyrics for that.   Sometimes they're different people.
Sometimes it's one person.   You know, that way.
>> You said earlier that Naughty Marietta came out as a tragedy?
>> Yes, Natoma, Natoma.
Natoma. Oscar Hammerstein I promised Herbert and hired Herbert
to write the first American grand opera.
He promised-- he wanted Herbert to do it.
Herbert wanted to do it.
It-- Herbert was under contract and Herbert finished it December of 1909
and Oscar Hammerstein I promised to produce it by February of 1910.
By February of 1910, he was broke
and his son Arthur actually sent him overseas to get him out of the way,
went to the Met-- just a little bit of quick background.
The Manhattan Opera Company that Oscar started was running the Met
out of business even though the Met had Caruso.
He's running them into the ground.   Everybody was losing money,
but Oscar spent money faster than he made it.
So, he-- so Arthur sent Oscar out of town.
He sent him over to England and he met with the Met and he said, "Look,
get-- make me an offer and I'll make Dad go away."
Honest to God, a quarter of a million, 0.25 dollars,
the Met paid Arthur and Oscar to make Arthur go away
or Oscar go away for 10 years.
[laughter] And Oscar took the money and went to London
and built an opera house.
And Arthur, Arthur produced Naughty Marietta
because he had a really angry composer on his hands because all
of a sudden the grand opera Natoma was dead in the water because Oscar
and Arthur could not produce opera for 10 years.
So, here you have and somebody I'm going to write a play about this
because this is probably the most TNT [phonetic] moment.
I can just see Victor Herbert bouncing off of the walls
because his opera was gone.
And the only way and I'm sure Arthur said to good friend Isidore,
"What in the heck are we going to do to shut him up?"
He's madder than hell.
And Isidore said, "Vic, why don't you write a really great operetta
and I happen to have a gal working for me in librettos,
Rida Johnson Young, who I think would be really good for you?"
November, Naughty Marietta opened
and there is no better American operetta.
Barna [phonetic].   >> You mentioned that Paris called.
Paris called one of the Victor Herbert's song, right?
Did he have-- do you have any idea what they were using
that song for, what they wanted it for?
>> A concert.   >> A concert.
>> A concert and having worked for a maestro
who was always doing things last minute.
Maestros love to do that.
[Inaudible Remark] They drive their orchestra librarian crazy.
[laughter] They say, "Oh, so and so is coming.
What would you like to sing, honey?"
"Oh, I know, I would do the Italian Street Song."
"Well, we don't have that."   "Well, that's what I want to do."
>> Okay.
>> So, they say to the orchestra librarian, go find it.
>> Yeah.   >> And fortunately, I have it.
[laughter] I'm the-- and I'm the only place in the entire world
where in 10 minutes you can get an original Herbert score and parts.
>> I have to remember that.
[laughs] Did he have a big following in Europe when he was alive and--
>> No.   >> No.
>> In American phenomenon, A, he didn't go about it.
And remember, Herbert is an Irishman, bleeds green.
To get into-- where is the big center of American musical
where the musical singers where the comedy is coming from.
Some are coming out of England.
Herbert had zero tolerance and time for anything English.
No, I mean that's his turn of the century.
And a true Irish patriot would have nothing.
He conducted there once and I think just
because of his bad feelings towards British, you know,
because of the political mood between the Irish and coming
from a family of patriots that way.
It really was a hard entree for him to get in.
And remember that this is early in American history
where Europeans did not expect too much from those Americans.
So, it's definitely an American thing.
I've done a lot of orchestra concerts in Europe and it passed
out Herbert piece on an orchestra program and they're like,
"Where did you find this composer?   This is wonderful music?
It's almost as good as Johann Strauss."
[laughter] And so, for them it's always kind of a fun thing
because they don't know this music at all.
So--
>> The interesting thing is that in World War I, you know,
World War I started in 1914.
We didn't get involved until 19, what, 17?
>> 17.
>> Through that whole three-year period, Victor Herbert was the voice
of the-- and guess who he wanted to win?
The Germans.   >> Because of the British.
>> And let me tell you the American-- [Inaudible Remark] No.
>> No, no.   >> Because--
>> 'Cause he didn't like the British so much.
>> Because he wanted the Germans to beat the English,
so that the English would live Ireland alone.
>> Yeah.
>> And he was the voice and he got himself in a ton of trouble.
>> Yeah.
>> And in fact, one of his best scores,
Eileen, which opened in 1917.
He hurt that score because he was so adamantly pro German.
>> He wasn't pro German.   He was just so darn anti English.
I think that's a better way to describe it.
>> Yeah. [Inaudible Remark]   >> Yeah. Okay.
One more and then we got to go.
>> The question I had, I conducted the opera, but--
I've conducted his one act opera.   >> Which one, Madeleine?
>> Madeleine.   >> Oh.
>> That's wonderful.
>> And I've done-- I did four performances of it
and I did it with orchestra.
Now, I got the orchestration from the Library
of the Metropolitan Opera.   >> Well, it's handwritten, right?
>> Exactly.
>> Well, that's what we're doing is we're computerizing it.
>> Oh, good.
>> So, it will be absolutely gorgeous.
>> Good, thank you very much because we had one hell
of a time dealing with those work.
[laughter] Because, you know, they did it at the Met and--
>> Yes. But you know where there's a better set?
>> Where?   >> Right here at the line.
>> Right here.
In fact, do you know where you can buy a set right now?
>> From you?   [laughter] No.
Well, you see, when I did it there was no you or you.
I mean, you know, this was like, what?
Eight years ago when I did it.   >> Where? Where did you do it?
>> Here in Arlington, Virginia.
And, but I did four performances of it and I had the orchestration
from the Met and these were the parts that were used.
I can't think of the name of this Italian that--
>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
T he guy who was head in the Met at the time.
>> Yeah. He and they had all of his additions in it
and the parts were dreadful.   >> Yeah, they hand written.
>> So, if you're doing this, thank you, because it's a lovely piece.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
I have for sale right now that you can download in 10 minutes.
I have a good handwritten set that came from here.
>> That's terrific because--   >> But--
>> -- I'm doing it again.
>> -- my guy will hopefully get off his--
we'll took us and finish the computerized version
and then you can buy it and keep it.
>> Oh, that's-- that would be good because, you know,
'cause it deserves to done.   >> Oh, it does.
>> It's a beautiful opera.
We get in the double bill with the [inaudible].
>> Well, it's a black box experimental opera, isn't it?
>> Right, exactly.   >> Yes, yes.
He was doing what Kern was trying to do with the Princess Theater.
>> Okay. That makes sense.   >> Yeah. Yeah.
>> But we had good sayers and we did it, and people love it,
and their first question was, "Where--
what the hell is this opera?"
Because they didn't know that he'd even written it.
>> Well, you should pair it up with The Magic Knight
which is the spoof of Lohengrin.
>> Which is the spoof of Lohengrin, yes I know.
>> And is absolutely hysterically funny
and both parts are done computerized and up on the site.
Everybody needs to go see vsource.com.
>> And with that said, go in to the Coolidge Auditorium
and enjoy tonight's concern.   [Applause]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.   [ Silence ]