From Operetta to Broadway: A Transatlantic Evolution

Operetta and vintage musical comedy were once the western world's most popular form of stage entertainment. This course—utilizing video clips from live productions, early films, and television—traces the evolution of American musical comedy from its operetta origins in Paris, Vienna, London, Berlin, and Budapest. We look at late 19th-century attempts to jump-start American operetta, which led to the groundbreaking stage works of Victor Herbert, Sigmund Romberg, and Rudolf Friml, and then to the more modern musical paradigm championed by Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and others.