Duchess of Chicago (1999) by John-Michael Sherrick

Light opera is an art form that has fallen out of popularity, especially in the past forty years. Thus it is not a surprise that a sumptuous recording of Emmerich Kalman's 1928 operetta, The Duchess of Chicago, is no longer in print. It's a shame, really, although a shame that is ultimately understandable. The work is hardly a masterpiece of operetta and one cd of highlights, containing the brightest and best numbers from the show, might have had a longer shelf life than the unwieldly, over-the-top work that the complete operetta is. But Kalman was trying something new: intermingling traditional operetta music with that of American jazz and musical comedy. I am not aware whether or not he was the first Viennese composer to try out such a frothy concoction, but he certainly was not the last. What one ends up with is a fascinating snapshot into the Viennese light opera scene of the 1920s with all its many charms and more than a few problems. In The Duchess of Chicago, we see one of the most famous operetta composers of his day desperately fighting against the tide of time and trying to preserve his dying art form by adapting it to the modern world. Most importantly, we see why it was a losing battle.

The plot of The Duchess of Chicago, as silly and forgettable as it is, is fascinating if you see the operetta as the end of a theatrical genre : Mary Lloyd, a noveau riche girl from Chicago, buys the impoverished Ruritanian kingdom of Sylvaria. Needless to say, she and Prince Sandor, the ruler of Sylvaria, fall in love but Sandor clings to the old Sylvarian ways and is simultaneously repulsed and captivated by his brash American sweetheart who would rather dance the Charleston than the csardas. The whole operetta ends up a battle between two different genres of music, reflecting the different personalities of the prince and Mary (not to mention Kalman's attempt to reconcile the rising popularity of American-styled jazz with operetta).

This is all a very clever idea, but the operetta is only partially successful. There are too many clashing musical styles, too many characters, too much of an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality for the operetta to succeed. This is not a vibrant attempt to wittily comment on the musical scene of 1928 Vienna, but rather the capitulation of a fading style of popular musical theater to a more successful one. It is a piece born out of desperation and it shows. There are many fine songs and three well-crafted concerted finales, but the operetta as a whole is too cutesy, tame, and old-fashioned in plot and music to provide a thoroughly enjoyable listening experience (maybe in the theater it was better). The concept is more ambitious than its execution. The operetta music is light, tuneful, and charming, but rarely as memorable as that of Kalman's more successful works. The jazz music pretty much sounds like typical operetta/musical comedy tunes with a few jazz touches. Trying to absorb this more modern, less sentimental sound into the sweetness and light of operetta results in some fairly saccharine music. There is always this tension in operetta, that between the more classical and popular oriented aspects of the genre. How a composer manages to reconcile these elements into a successful work accounts for much of operetta's charm. But I doubt that it has ever been as stridently or obsessively made the focal point of an operetta before or after Kalman's Duchess of Chicago. The music is not really based on a delicate mixture of opera and musical comedy resulting in a work of theater that comprises both but rather on a conflict between that harmonization and American-styled popular music. This is probably why the big Viennese waltz duet between Sandor and Mary never gets off the ground... it is not trying to charm, it is trying to argue a point. By all means, if you enjoy Viennese operetta, find a copy of Duchess of Chicago. You will enjoy it. But you will also, despite the sparkle of the music... despite the air of gaiety... despite the colorful orchestrations, be left with a certain feel of sadness. In many ways, it is the end of the rich tradition of Viennese waltz-opera.