Naughty Marietta

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NAUGHTY MARIETTA
Victor Herbert's Great Opera Comique
UNDER PERSONAL DIRECTION OF
CHARLES F. HORNER
NEW YORK   CHICAGO   KANSAS CITY

MANAGEMENT HORNER-WITTE CONCERT BUREAU




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NAUGHTY MARIETTA is Coming!
CHARMING, piquant, in all the gorgeous finery of a new dress, with a sumptuous entourage—in all her blissful fantasy, she is to make a transcontinental tour.

It is hard to avoid superlatives in the interesting story which we want to tell, but how often have you read high sounding superlatives attached to the announcements of some new entertainment venture?

Superlatives are handy words but unfortunately are not always truthfully used.

It is not strange, indeed, that the public pays but little attention to such announcements, and good humoredly reflects upon Barnum's philosophy, The people like to be humbugged.

Truthfulness in advertising is as important as honest value in merchandise.

In seeking to merit and hold public favor, a good manager is always perplexed in his efforts to find proper words to describe something out of the ordinary.  It is indeed a sad fact that, in the theatrical and concert world, persuasive language does not always follow closely the lines of veracity.  Yet a great manager of musical or dramatic attractions essentially should be an artist, and the first requirements of artistic effort are sincerity and truthfulness.  There are many managers in America.  Some of them are very sincere.  Others will do anything to put it over.

So we will try as far as possible to avoid adjectives that are too high sounding as we concern ourselves chiefly with the work of a small group of men, who, with a remarkably strong association, are succeeding in accomplishing something quite unusual in dramatic and musical activities.

This group has important connections in New York, Chicago, Kansas City, and other great centers.

An important member of the group is Mr. Charles F. Horner, with offices in New York, Chicago, and Kansas City.

The association indicated is a very strong one.  It

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 has influence, capital, and a splendid record of successful dealing with the public.

These men have many attractions to present, but, for the season of 1928–29, their greatest achievement is described in these pages.

Generally speaking, the first class road company has gone out of business.  High costs of travel, heavy expenses under the old methods, and a lower standard of excellence, have together practically made the traveling dramatic or operatic company a thing of the past.  Yet there are scores of splendid cities in America with public spirited, progressive citizens, with wealth and leisure, who are deprived of an opportunity to witness a really first class stage attraction without going to Chicago, New York, or to another one of the few great amusement centers of America.

The occasional road company that ventures forth is not good.  The need for a new system of booking and presentation of something unusually excellent is very great indeed.  Without some new plan of action, without considerable courage, and the doing of business on rather a large scale, the cost of carrying a great production to the cities that can afford only one night, or, at the best, a week of the time of such a production, is almost prohibitive.

To solve the problem presented, Mr. Horner and his associates have spent much time and money.  They believe they have created a new idea in the dramatic world, and, besides, have produced a great production so fascinating and so much greater in value than anything previously attempted in similar efforts that they submit the following pages with much satisfaction and assurance.

In New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia, the present season shows a tremendous revival in interest in light or comic operas.  Every great light opera production has been greeted by enthusiastic crowds.  Not in twenty years has there been such an interest taken in the opera comique, or musical comedy.

Of all really successful comic operas, none has been greater than NAUGHTY MARIETTA, Victor Herbert's masterpiece.  In the effort to secure the rights to produce this lovely spectacle, there were

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 many competitors.  Of all works available, this was the first choice of the present management, and by all odds was the hardest to secure.  Due to the fine system designed for making a success of the performance, and the payment of a substantial sum in cash, the management was able to secure the rights of production by arrangement with Tams-Witmark, representatives of the Victor Herbert Estate.

So NAUGHTY MARIETTA will make her great transcontinental tour under this management.

A fortune is being spent in the booking and production.  It is a Broadway success coming direct from the great white way to your city.  It is fresh, inspiring, and beautiful.  It is a performance that you can well afford to travel far to see.  It will not be possible for us to convey an adequate idea of its size, its beauty, and importance, but we will make an effort to enumerate some of its principal claims for distinguishment.



As to Its Cast
More than nine months are being spent in properly casting the present performance.  Literally hundreds of principals are being examined, tried out, and considered, before selections are finally made.  Already some of the outstanding actors and singers of America have been secured.  The principals are being recruited from among the best America has to offer.  They are good actors, and, for the most part, they are men and women who, while enjoying great success, are still in their youth.  On another page you will find a list of the characters of the play.



The Chorus
We venture to say that this great, colorful and beautiful aggregation of young performers represents the greatest singing chorus that has ever been your privilege to hear in your city.  The girls are beautiful.  The men are manly and attractive.  There is not a poor voice in the lot.  Each member of the chorus has been tried again and again.  Each one must have a trained voice of unusual quality.  Each one must be an accomplished actor or actress, and each must have great personal charm as well.  Not only are the members of this body beautiful people, splendid singers, and young people of

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 charming personality and stage facility, but they possess in a high degree the qualities necessary to fit them for a wonderful ensemble, whether in acting, singing, or dancing.



Sylvia Tell Ballet
In addition to the principals and chorus this presentation will include a beautifully trained ballet of young dancers.  The Premiere Danseuse is an outstanding figure on the stage.  The supporting dancers are lovely girls who have had years of training, and the ballet ensemble, with its wealth of colorful costumes and striking movements, is a production by Sylvia Tell, the great American Premiere Danseuse.  The ballet itself, as well as each individual, has her careful supervision and training.



The Orchestra
Unlike most traveling companies, NAUGHTY MARIETTA will not rely in any way upon local musicians for proper orchestral support.  A very competent and perfectly trained orchestra is a part of the company, and its work contributes no small share to the success of the production.



CONDUCTOR AND DIRECTION
WHILE the entire performance is under the personal direction of Mr. Horner, a general conductor is in charge of each presentation.  Mr. Ellsworth Gilbert is in charge of the musical direction.  Assisting Mr. Horner in the dramatic direction is a staff of fine stage directors headed by Mr. Willard Hall of New York and Ethel Bennett of Chicago.

For this performance a small army of people will be required.  There is a stage manager, with first, second and third assistant stage managers.  Necessary men in charge of lighting effect.  A wardrobe mistress and her assistants.  Principals, chorus, ballet, orchestra, require fifty people.  When there are added to these the necessary business assistants, booking and advance agents and advertising agents, a rather startling total number of people is

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 reached.  The ensemble is so large that an ordinary traveling show in describing it would probably announce one hundred or one hundred and twenty-five people.  Numbers, however, are not so important as the fact that each individual is an artist, each one has a definite part, and each is carefully trained in the work he has to do.  As an example, before a first performance is given, more than a hundred rehearsals are held.



Lighting Effects
A great deal of equipment is carried with the show and some startling as well as beautiful effects are produced.  Stage lighting is one of the newest arts, and the effects for NAUGHTY MARIETTA have been created by one of the masters in his profession.



Staging and Scenery
Two unusual scenic artists have designed the beautiful settings in which this performance is staged.  The problem of carrying scenery for a traveling company is a great one, indeed.  The management has evolved mechanical devices that, in a large way, have solved the problems of transporting and presenting beautiful scenery on the various types of stages found by traveling companies.  In the lovely effects produced in NAUGHTY MARIETTA we have much pride.  The scenes are colorful, modern in conception and perfectly fitted to create the illusions desired.  They are beautiful, indeed, and we predict that their effect will be startling.



Costuming
Once more artists have been employed in designing the costumes for this performance.  Hundreds of changes are required.  Great quantities of beautiful and seductive material are used.  A wealth of modern artistic efforts has been expended in the creation of the desired effects.

The designs are by Kathleen Horner, who received her artistic training in Paris in the Academie Colorossi, at Parsons School, as well as in American schools.





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Advertising
Not only is this to be a surpassing performance in its beauty and artistry but the management is prepared to furnish to each city a most unusual line of advertising.

Here again creative efforts have been employed.  The advertising is such as you never saw before.  Posters, heralds, billboard paper, window cards, newspaper cuts, all are unique, interesting, compelling, and beautiful.  Nothing commonplace.  All is rich in originality and fascinating color.  Mr. Alexander J. Kostellow, who designed this booklet, has been retained to create the advertising for NAUGHTY MARIETTA.



The Whole Ensemble
It must be perceived, if credence is given to this booklet, that those who are privileged to enjoy a performance of NAUGHTY MARIETTA may look forward with great expectation to something quite outstanding from the things in the ordinary range of their experience.



NAUGHTY MARIETTA
THE scene is laid in New Orleans, in 1750, during the French Regime.

The King of France has sent a number of beautiful girls to that city, each one bearing a casket, containing a gift from the king.  It is designed that these girls shall become the wives of the settlers.

A charming Italian young lady of rank, the Naughty Marietta of the play, smuggles herself into the group in order to avoid a marriage with an old nobleman whom she dislikes.  Upon arrival she escapes and hides herself.  She is found by Captain Dick, an American officer, and they are much attracted to each other.

The Captain, with his friend, Sir Harry Blake, and their company of soldiers, are bound to secure the capture of a great Pirate Chief, who really turns out to be Etienne, a man of standing, and son of the Lieutenant Governor of the Province.



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The opera opens in the Place D'Armes.  At the rise of the curtain it is dawn.  The sky shows crimson and gold.  Beggars are asleep at the fountain, and the music is soft and low.  The night watchman enters.  Beggars bestir themselves.  The lamplighter comes in and extinguishes the lights, and then, as day breaks in all its glory, the flower girls come upon the stage singing their songs and offering their flowers for sale.  All at once the place is a scene of action.  Peddlers, soldiers, quadroons, Indians, come upon the scene.  All are eagerly looking forward to the coming of the casquette girls.  With this group is Lizette, the outstanding comedienne.  Captain Dick and his men arrive, and Marietta is discovered hiding in the fountain.  Etienne has designs upon Marietta and for protection she is dressed as a boy and entrusted to the care of Rudolfo, an Italian proprietor of a Marionette show.  With the inevitable conflict between two men interested in the same girl the action takes its way.

It culminates in the last act when the duplicity of Etienne is discovered and when Marietta and Captain Dick really find that they are in love with each other.

In the meantime great excitement and many complications are caused when Etienne decides to sell his girl, Adah, at the Quadroon ball.

The dramatic action then rises to great heights.  Captain Dick buys the girl really for the purpose of freeing her, but this makes Marietta very angry indeed.  She promises to marry Etienne, and as the moment for the wedding arrives, it is discovered that Etienne and his followers are really the Pirates, and the whole scene is thrown into an uproar.  Swords flash, the music increases in volume, and a tremendous ensemble dramatizes a thrilling denoument.

No period in early American history was more colorful than 1750, and no place more attractive than the New Orleans of that day.  It is not strange that Victor Herbert was inspired to write one of his greatest works.





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The Music
The music of the opera is of surpassing beauty.

From the overture to the last mighty ensemble it is entrancing.  Its melodies will live long in American haerts.  Its songs will be sung for ages.  The whole world knows its Italian Street Song, with the fascinating Zing, Zing Chorus.

The opera has a score of music hits.  The Soldiers' Song by Captain Dick and his men, and the Taisez Vous of the Casquette girls are already famous.  To enumerate all of the great hits of the opera would require too much space.  Particularly noted, however, is the Naughty Marietta song by the prima donna, and It Never, Never Can Be Love by Captain Dick and Marietta.  These two are outstanding numbers in the first act.

The Dance of the Marionettes, the Loves of New Orleans must not be forgotten.

One of the most beautiful songs, with its weird, fantastic melody, and its haunting sweetness is the Under Southern Moon by Adah.

The Dream Melody, however, is the great motif of the work.  Its theme is carried constantly throughout the whole performance.

It has already been indicated that the numbers devoted to the chorus are rather bewildering in their grandeur.  It must be remembered, however, that the music is not all lilting and emotional.  The comedy is gorgeous.  To Silas and Lizette, the two great comedy roles are entrusted some of the successes of the play.  If I Were Anybody Else But Me, with its eccentric movements, It's Pretty Soft for Simon, with the tremendously funny lines, and the comic situations into which these two people constantly are precipitating themselves, are sure to furnish good humor and hilarious laughter enough to please the greatest seeker of fun.

Here is a list of the chief characters of the opera:

Captain Richard Warrington, an American known as Captain Dick.
Lieutenant-Governor Grandet.
Etienne Grandet, son of the Lieutenant-Governor.
Sir Harry Blake, an Irish Adventurer.

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Silas Slick, Captain Dick's Servant.
Rudolfo, keeper of the Marionette Theatre.
Florenze, Secretary to Lieutenant Governor.
Marietta D'Altena, Prima Donna.
Lizette, a Casquette Girl.
Adah, a Quadroon Slave.
Fanchon, Nanette, Felice, girls of the town.
Graziella, Rudolfo's daughter.
Sacristan.
Knife grinder.
East Indian, and others.


Girls of the chorus are made up of Quadroon belles, Spanish girls, French girls.

With the men of the chorus are included Captain Dick's followers, pirates, trappers, Italians.

Rida Johnson Young, collaborating with Victor Herbert, wrote the lyrics for the play.



Management and Bookings
The entire production is staged, directed and managed by Mr. Horner.  The tour will begin October 1, 1928.  Careful dating without waste in unnecessary travel, in progressive cities, and with thoroughly reliable men or organizations are essential.

More complete information may be obtained by writing to the Horner-Witte Concert Bureau, 3000 Troost Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri, or to Charles F. Horner, 412 Knickerbocker Theatre Building, New York City; Charles F. Horner, Room 302 Delaware Building, 36 West Randolph Street, Chicago, Illinois, or to Charles F. Horner Dramatic Productions, 3000 Troost Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri.



In Conclusion
The management promises a production so elaborate that we honestly believe it has not before been equalled in a touring company—so beautiful to the eye that it is a thing of great delight, so truly wonderful in its dances, in its music, and its whole ensemble, that we venture to say it will live long in the memory of those who may for a night enjoy its beauty.





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SYLVIA TELL



ALEXANDER KOSTELLOW



CHARLES F. HORNER



KATHLEEN HORNER



ELLSWORTH GILBERT




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