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.