Robert Couzinou (Pierre) played l’Ombre Rouge, Marcelle Denya was Jenny (ex-Margot) singing `Rêver’, whilst the comic Dorville was Onésime (ex-Bennie) in his quest for `Ça!’. They hastened to mount another American romantic piece and Le Chant du désert (ad Roger Ferréol, Saint-Granier) produced as an `Opérette à grand spectacle en 2 parties et huit tableaux’ served their purpose well. After the serious success of Rose-Marie, the Isola Brothers had followed up with Hallelujah! (ie Hit the Deck) with much more mitigated results. Unlike its near contemporary Rose Marie, The Desert Song did not make major inroads into Europe, with one exception: France. Schwab and Mandel’s production of The Desert Song (prematurely entitled Lady Fair on its initial showing at Poli’s Theater in Washington) was a great Broadway hit through a run of 471 performances, as the preface to a very long career.Īnother poster for the 1956 film version. The libretto of The Desert Song was, give or take a sag in the last stages of the second act, very much better made than those for most contemporary musical romances, and the show’s emphasis on the sentimental and seductive side of its content, richly illustrated musically, proved to be well in the line of current taste. A pretty `Why Did We Marry Soldiers?’ and French Marching Song for the ladies’ chorus, a lightly humorous demonstration of tough seduction techniques (`I Want a Kiss’), and the heroine’s showpiece Sabre Song were amongst other highspots of a score in which the straight comedy numbers - Bennie’s musings over the feminine quality known as `It’, his fears, under pressure from a saucy Spaniard (Margaret Irving), that he will soon be `One Good Man Gone Wrong’, and Susan’s `I’ll Be a Buoyant Girl’ - were slightly submerged. Romberg’s score contained several songs which were to become romantic standards - the hero’s waltzing invitation to Valentino-style desert bliss in `The Desert Song’ (`Blue heaven, and you and I …’), Margot’s soprano dreams of Elinor-Glynnish `Romance’, the driving chorus of `The Riff Song’ and the Red Shadow’s ballad, `One Alone’, which was one part of an impressive `Eastern and Western Love’ section which also included the lovely `Let Love Go’ and the counter-tenor `One Flower Grows Alone in Your Garden’. Postcard with scnes from the original Broadway production 1926. The comic element was provided by Bennie Kidd (Eddie Buzzell), a society columnist deputizing uncomfortably as a war correspondent, and his desperately devoted secretary, Susan (Nellie Breen). Only his father and maybe - just maybe - Margot, need know the truth. But the ending is happier than Il Trovatore: Pierre produces the Red Shadow’s costume and announces that he has killed the rebel. But later, when Fontaine has set forth to take the Red Shadow, dead or alive, the jealous Arab dancing girl, Azuri (Pearl Regay), reveals to the General that he has put a price on the head of his own son. Music from a tale in the desert free#When General Birabeau comes to free her, Pierre is unable to draw his sword against his father and thus forfeits his leadership of the Arab band. His gormless act means that he has little chance of winning the lovely Margot Bonvalet (Vivienne Segal) from Fontaine, so to pursue his suit he gets into his sheikish costume and carries her romantically off into the desert. In fact, the Red Shadow is none other than the Governor’s native-loving son, Pierre (Robert Halliday), who pretends to be a weak-witted fool at home whilst secretly sneaking out to put on Arab garb and lead the locals’ attacks on his father’s forces. The anti-French Arab guerillas of the North African deserts who have been raiding and pressuring the colonial government, as represented by army chief Captain Paul Fontaine (Glen Dale) and the new Governor, General Birabeau (Edmund Elton), are led to damaging effect by a mysterious person known as the Red Shadow.
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