Lilac Time (Das Dreimaederlhaus)
A Play with music in three acts - Original book by A M Willner and Heinz Reichert, new English book and lyrics by Phil Park and Adam Carstairs, music by Franz Schubert adapted by Heinrich Berte
Composer: Schubert, Franz 1797 - 1828
Version: English version by Phil Park and Adam Carstairs
Das Dreimäderlhaus (House of the Three Girls - 1916), adapted both as Blossom Time and Lilac Time, is a Viennese pastiche operetta with music by Franz Schubert, which gives a fictionalized account of Schubert’s romantic life. Debuting during World War I, the operetta’s popularity was fueled by the Austrain public’s taste for nostalgia, harnessing an old-fashioned, sentimental story and Schubert’s familiar music. Schubert worked hard during his lifetime to become a successful opera composer, but found little success in the genre. With Das Dreimäderlhaus, ironically, his music finally became famous in a stage work. By 1961, the piece was estimated to have played over 85,000 performances worldwide. SYNOPSIS (1973 Park/Hanmer version): Old Vienna - and the shy young composer Franz Schubert writes a beautiful love song to his beloved Mitzi. But he gets his best friend Baron Schober to sing it to her, and she falls in love with him instead of poor Franz, who has to find consolation in their happiness - and in his music. Delightful sub-plots concern Mitzi’s two attractive sisters and their boyfriends, a temperamental prima-donna and a jealous Count…..
Instrumentation
2(2 dbl picc).2.2.2. / 4.2.3.0. / timp / perc / hp / str
Format
V/S
Publisher
JW