The Victor Herbert Renaissance Project LIVE! is reacquainting New York City with the music of Victor Herbert. To date, the company has restored 12 full productions and 5 concerts consisting solely of this composer’s music. With Season Six, the Company launches an exploration of “Love, Parisian Style!” Each offering features a modern woman with definite ideas of her own – a debutante, a diva and a dreamer – in Paris, the city of light, art, and romance! The Fall kick-off will be Herbert’s 1914 musical comedy, The Debutante, on Tuesday, November 19th and Wednesday November 20th, 2019 at 8pm.  Next up on  March 3rd and 4th is the historic one-act opera Madeleine, which is also from 1914. This opera was originally performed by The Metropolitan Opera Company. “We really wanted to present a fuller staging of  Herbert’s 1914 experimental one act opera Madeleine, about a French diva searching for a dinner partner in Paris on New Year’s Eve, as the center piece of this season.  We then searched out other Herbert works we had not yet produced which had strong women and a Parisian setting,” Mott added. The season ends with the 1905 Operetta Mlle. Modiste, on May 5th and 6th, 2020. Sarah Caldwell Smith stars in the work. “Mlle. Modiste was the perfect season finale as we had an orchestration for our New Victor Herbert Orchestra. Not only is it a flag waving celebration of all things French, it has that strong woman at its core – Fifi, first portrayed by Fritzi Scheff, the first crossover star from the Metropolitan Opera Company to Broadway,” Mott concluded.

The Victor Herbert Renaissance Project LIVE! is the world’s only company exclusively devoted to Victor Herbert, the Irish-born conductor and musician who composed innovative scores for early Broadway, as well as classical and popular music. Herbert contributed powerfully to the emergence of an authentically 20th century American sound; and did so lavishly, producing 43 operettas, 2 operas, and innumerable compositions for orchestra, band, cello, violin and piano.

The Irish-American composer Victor Herbert was the “Crown Prince” of American popular music, especially when operetta commanded the early 20th century Broadway stage. Herbert’s rhapsodic scores often became instant hits that were published widely and heard from coast to coast.

In addition to his musical endeavors, Herbert was instrumental in the formation of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and he fought recording companies who tried to use popular and classical music without paying royalties.

Victor Herbert Renaissance Project LIVE! Inc. is a registered 501(c)(3) corporation. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Official registration and financial information concerning VHRP LIVE INC. can be obtained from the Delaware Department of the State by calling 1-(302) 739-3073. Registration does not imply endorsement.