The Catch of the Season

The Catch of the Season

Hicks and Terriss
Music Herbert Haines
Evelyn Baker
Lyrics Charles H. Taylor
Book Seymour Hicks
Cosmo Hamilton
Basis Cinderella
Productions 1904 West End
1905 Broadway
1907 Budapest
1909 Sydney
1913 Vienna

The Catch of the Season is an Edwardian musical comedy by Seymour Hicks and Cosmo Hamilton, with music by Herbert Haines and Evelyn Baker and lyrics by Charles H. Taylor, based on the fairy tale Cinderella. It was produced by Agostino and Stefano Gatti and American Charles Frohman at the Vaudeville Theatre in London, opening on 9 September 1904 and running for a very successful 621 performances. The production starred Zena Dare as Angela, because Hicks' wife Ellaline Terriss was pregnant. Later Terriss played the role for a time, ceding it to Dare's sister, Phyllis Dare. It also starred Hicks and Louie Pounds. Belgian-American actress Camille Clifford, who played Sylvia Gibson, became perhaps the most famous "Gibson Girl".

Frohman produced the musical on both sides of the Atlantic, and one year after the premiere, with the London production still running, he exported the The Catch of the Season to Daly's Theater in New York, where Edna May starred with an English supporting cast and a chorus of English and French "Gibson Girls".[1][2] The score was supplemented with numerous interpolations, principally by American music director William T. Francis and also by Jerome Kern.

Other international productions followed. In Budapest The Catch of the Season was translated as A bálkirálynő by Jenő Heltai in 1907.[3] The Australian premiere was at Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney in 1909.[4] In Vienna Die Ballkönigin, translated by Fritz Lunzer and actor Karl Tuschl, was mounted twice in 1913, first at the Sommertheater Venedig in Wien, then as a holiday entertainment at the Theater an der Wien.[5] London revivals included a 1917 production at the Prince's Theatre.

The story concerns Lady Caterham's stepdaughter Angela, who is a debutante about to 'come out' and is 'the catch of the season'. She becomes engaged to the young rake, Lord St. Jermyns, although she really loves the page, Bucket. Honoria Bedford, Lady Crystal's younger daughter, who is about to 'come out', has taken up smoking, which in 1904 was considered very shocking.

Roles and original cast

Musical numbers

Sheet music from the Broadway production

Broadway score (music by Haines and Baker and lyrics by Taylor, except as noted):

Act I
Act II

The Broadway score cut the following songs by Haines, Baker and Taylor (except as noted) that had been included in the British production:

References

  1. ↑ "What the Playhouses Promise This Week". The New York Times. 1905-08-27. pp. SM10.
  2. ↑ "Show Girldom's Zenith in New Musical Play". The New York Times. 1905-08-29. p. 5.
  3. ↑ "Newton, catalogue for the libraries of the University". A bálkirályné : operett 2 felvonásban. University of Cambridge. Retrieved 2009-07-12.
  4. ↑ Richards, Leann. "HAT-History of Australian Theatre". Retrieved 2009-07-12.
  5. ↑ Bauer, Anton (1955). Opern und Operetten in Wien : Verzeichnis ihrer Erstaufführungen in der Zeit von 1629 bis zur Gegenwart. Graz: H. Böhlaus Nachf.
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